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RECALLED: 



VOICES OF THE PAST, 



POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 



BY 

<)Wv/>. JANE EKMINA LOCKE. 






BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE : 
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 

MDCCCLIV. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year ]853, by 
James Munroe & Company, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



THURSTON, TORRY, AND EMERSON, PRINTERSo 



PREFACE. 



Many of the Poems that make up this volume, have here- 
tofore been published, with various signatures, and accredited 
to other authors, both native and foreign. Some of them, over 
the signature v '- E. L., have, by errors of the press, been 
frequently made to read, and thus have been circulated to 
the credit, of a late popular English author, Mrs. McLean? 
<L. E. L. J 

Much as I may have felt flattered by these public blunders, I 
have nevertheless wished to correct them and reclaim my own, 
not less for /the sake of these who love me, than for my own 
sake. 

And now, having so done, I once more send them forth upon 
the sea already navied with treasured thoughts, and beside rich 
argosies from other ports, that they may together continue to 
float or sink, as the voice of public opinion, which is Destiny, 
shall decide. 

To these Poems I have also added many never before pub- 
lished, written under different phases of life, and which have 
been collected for publication for a year or more, in answer both 
to a call, and a promise made by an early published volume, 
the kind and cordial reception of which, nerves me again to dare 
the critic for a deeper nestling place in the public heart. 

I must, however, be allowed to say, to any who shall feel 
disposed to fatten on my leanness, in the language of one of 



the severest critics of the age, whose words of encouragement 
have given strength and confidence to this whole volume, that 
* Poetry has been with me not a purpose, but a passion, — a 
passion that could not at will be excited with an eye to the 
paltry considerations, or the more paltry commendations of 
mankind.' And like one, whose name rises to my lips with 
profoundest reverence, and which would settle away again into 
silence in this connection, so much does it seem like arrogance 
in me thus to make use of it, were it not that the true Poet, in 
all time, and in all places, has received the same sacred 
baptism, and may therefore with impunity, and without pre- 
sumption, claim a seat at the same sacraments, — the immor- 
tal hero and author of ( Wilhelm Meister ' : — e I have come 
to view the poetic talent residing in me entirely as nature, 
the exercise of which might be stimulated and determined by 
occasions, but it has flowed forth most joyfully, most richly, 
when it came involuntarily, or against my will.' Here then 
is the challenge and the defence, spontaneity irresistible, mani- 
fested in earliest childhood and against which I have more 
striven than in the cultivation of the poetic. 

A want of health and leisure necessary to continued appli- 
cation, alone have prevented me from writing out one long 
and connected Life Poem, which is here thrown off in fitful 
and somewhat disjointed passages, just as its sterner duties 
have come up to interrupt and take their place with command- 
ing power in my heart. 

Boston, November, 1853 



CONTENTS. 



Uotces of ti)e SPast* 

Opening Stanzas ...... 3 

Deer Island ...... 6 

To Frances Anne Kemrle .... 9 

To Frederika Bremer . . . . 13 

On a Picture . . . . . .16 

The Fallen Eagle . . . . . 19 

The True Poet ...... 22 

The Broejen Spirit's Release ... 25 

The Post of Honor . . . . .26 

Christmas Bells . . . . . 27 

Requiem for Edgar A. Poe . . . .29 

The Theban Maiden . . . . 32 

Massacre of the Nuns of St. Ursula • . .35 

To Alfred Tennyson ..... 37 

The Grave of Mary Stace Willis . . .38 

F. S. 41 

Jean Margaret Davenport . . . .44 

To a distinguished Foreign Author . . 45 

To ■ 47 

The Independent Beggar .... 50 

The Nameless One . . . . .52 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



A Legend of Plymouth Forge . 

Niagara 

Bethesda's Pool . 

Woman .... 

The Discouraged Artist 

For One I Loved 

Love and Wisdom 

Dante ..... 

The Scattered Household 

Serapheli's Hymn 

The Poet Seer 

An Evening Prayer . 

The Irish Repeal Banquet 

The Dilatory Priest 

An Invocation for Suffering Genius 

The Lunar Bow 

The Millennial Ship 

The Mountain Mail-Carrier 

The Lone Oak of Sacramento . 

A Dream at Parting 

The Aged Inebriate 

The Wanderer 

The Bailiff's Visit 

Saturday Night 

The Widowed Heart 

A Sad Heart's Reflection . 



54 

58 

62 

65 

69 

72 

74 

76 

78 

81 

84 

87 

89 

91 

93 

96 

98 

100 

103 

107 

110 

113 

117 

121 

124 

128 



33assajjes from 3Ltfe. 
Proverbs . ... 

Vigils 
Imitation of an Old Song 



133 
138 
141 



Vll 



Wamesit Cottage . . . . .145 

The Lady in at Ticknor's . . . . 150 

Begullings . . . . . .154 

Sabbath "Worship . . . . .156 

Jubilate ....... 158 

God Bless my Little Flock] . . . 161 

My Child's First Teeth . . . . .165 

The Disguised Pilgrim . . . . 168 

On a Sepulchral Lamp . . . . .171 

The Stranger . . . . .174 

Stanzas . . . . . . . 177 

To the Ideal ...... 180 

Lady and Poet . . . . . .181 

Doems of t6e £treaL 

Ella . . . . . . .189 

The Refrain of Eva . . . . .194 

Midnight Shadows . . . . .199 

The Sisters of Avon . . . . 204 



Daniel Webster « . . . . .223 

Notes . ..... • • . 243 



SnttB nf-tlft pnnt. 



OPENING STANZAS. 

Let me gather near your rest, 

Brother Bards ; 
For down low I'll make my nest 

In the shards, 
And there sing so to please ; 
While your notes amid the trees 
Float the favoring world-wide breeze, 

Brother Bards. 

But Pll tell you in fond trust, 

Brother Bards, 
High or low, yet sing I must, 

As the Pards 
May not change or spot or hue, 
Where they roam the valleys through, 
Or swift brush the mountain dew 

From the swards. 



VOICES OF THE PAST. 

So my soul for yonder Life, 

Brother Bards, 
Struggling to the death of strife 

Through dim wards ; 
Evermore this music hath, 
'T is its very life and breath, 
And to quench it would be death 

To life's regards. 

Therefore Brothers, proud and strong, 

Let me bring 
Hither my fond lyre of song, 

Let me sing ; — 
For ye know not in my breast, 
What deep fountains of unrest 
Calm themselves in tones so blest, 

Where they spring. 

And ye know not how I 've tried, 

Brothers dear, 
'Neath my robes this lyre to hide, 

Shaming e'er 
To send forth its struggling tones, 
Till they broke as smothered groans 
From a fettered soul, or moans 

Round the bier ! 



OPENING- STANZAS. 

Ye are mighty with your lyres, 

Brother Bards, 
And their silver keys and wires 

Angel guards 
Cover with their glittering wings, 
Listening as ye sweep the strings, 
While their chief one earthward flings 

Proud rewards. 

Mine shall never win a crown, 

Brother Bards ; 
Never earth's so blest renown, 

Or regards ; 
But it wakes the pure and true, 
Morn and eve and midnight through, 
Weak response to notes from you, 

Brother Bards. 



DEER ISLAND, 

QUARANTINE GROUND IN BOSTON HARBOR. 

Island of grief! beneath whose barren sward 
Lie the crushed hopes of poverty and love ; 
Where ever the murmur of one solemn word 
Rises amid thy mist the ocean wail above ; 
Word of all words of woe the soul may tell, 
The whispered sigh of desolate hearts — farewell ! 
My heart grows ashen as I gaze on thee, 
For the echo of that word, lone Island of the sea ! 

To me thou strikest horror! what to him, 

Who on yon vessel's deck in agony 
Gazes with glazed eye on the ocean's brim, 

And in his dying dreams whispers of thee ! 
Who famine-spent upon his native shore, 
Cast one sad yearning look the blue main o'er, 
Then grasped the fragments of his wretchedness, 
With the symbols of his hope that now his pale lips 
press ; 



DEER ISLAND. 7 

That now his wan lips press so fervently, 

In their last quivering gasp : — rosary and cross ! 
How did a dim hope flicker on the sea 

Of life and love, when he its waves should cross ; 
Fond hope, but to be quenched in that sad word, 
That strain of woe that sternest hearts hath stirred, 
Whose echo round thee lashes sand and shore, 
Rides on the gale, and the lone sea-bird's wing — no 
more ! 

How many a time shall hope grow faint and fade, 

How many a time shall falter firmest faith, 
Ere the dull anthem for thy nameless dead, 

Shiver to broken chords the feigned smile beneath ! 
How many a time of starving want the wail 
On poverty's lone Isle rush on the gale, 
Weary the wave, and sink beneath the sea, 
Ere there the death-note break in hopelessness from 
thee! 

Oh, who shall mark the rude Cross sacred there, 

The death-palled hand, ere its own pulse was stilled, 

Reared on thy soil, that tells the traveller where 
A lonely grave with love's fresh hopes was filled ? 

Would it were mine the task — my misty sight, 

Dim with fresh tears as dew-drops of the night, 



8 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Should not overlook the meanest alien grave, 
O'er which could bend a desolate love my sympathy to 
crave. 

For still upon my own cheek creeps the breath 

Of dying love ! Still wails within my heart 
The forest wind through leafless boughs ! Still wreath 

Young dimpled hands, with sacred buds that start, 
A desolate altar, where in purple flame 
Fond hopes have burnt out, and fond loves the same, 
Leaving their ashes heaped in odor there, 
Kindred to that o'er thee, thou Island of despair ! 

How bends the heart at many a ruined shrine, 

And firmly walks in strength its pride hath feigned, 

A Mecca pilgrimage, as 'twere divine, 

Kneeling by founts unanswered love hath drained ! 

How mourns it oft, as bending o'er its dead, 

Its wasted faith by tombs unholy shed ; 

And yearns to write above the hallowed dust, 

As I would write o'er thine — Heaven, Faith, and Trust ! 



TO FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. 

Woman ! o'er whom doth fall in deep despair 
The drapery of thy bridal ; to whose brow 

Cling withered rose and myrtle, though thy care 
Dewed them with freshest tears, (yet budless now,) 

I've longed to see thy face, if guilt were there, 
In heartless smiles o'er woman's broken vow. 

I Ve gazed upon thee — and I marked me all 
In thy sweet look, no hollow heartlessness 

O'er thy dark lot seemed in thy lonely soul, 
Waking new budding hopes thy life to bless ; 

Wreathing anew its dregged and bitter bowl, 
Or waking lightsome smiles of joyousness. 

I thought me that thy soft and saddened eye, 

Thy sparkling glance, flashed wealth as studded 
throne, 
Or mitre gems foreshadowing royalty, 



10 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Yet grandeur that shall ever mark thee lone ; 
Woes burnt upon thy heart as destiny, 

Stamped thy clear brow, thou more than desolate 
one ! 

Tears gathered to my eyes from out my soul, 
As in thy face I read, (mid thy renown 

And the dread death-pang of thy hopes,) control, 
Like that which marked her being, who the crown 

Of Celtic Gaul — as nearing the fond goal 

Of earthly hope, — cast in stern anguish down. 

Who with firm hand gave back a monarch's love, 
Or tearless with it crowned the youthful bloom 

Of Austria's virgin rival, — deed above 

All save an angel's power — like thine her doom, 

Thine like to hers, amid despair who strove, 
Then changed with Ruel honor for a tomb ! 

Men laud thy greatness ; deem they tears and woe 
Wrought out that glory, that thy soul makes faint ; 

Whose song and music have a dirge-like flow, 
Moving thy woman's heart as victory's feint ; 

Or requiem on the sward for those below, 
Or shout and psean o'er the warrior spent ! 



TO FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. 11 

Deem they thy soul is famishing amid 

The plaudits and the homage of the crowd ? 

Or reckoned they of thine eye's tearless lid 
The cost, as reverent in thy path they bowed ; 

Or jewels paid for the despair so hid 
In the abysses of thy bosom proud ! 

Only the wounded oyster in its shell, 

Leaves the pure pearl-drop, beauty's priceless gem; 
'Tis but from gashes odorous resins well, 

Of healing power, made in the leafy stem, 
Or living trunk of tree in eastern dell ; 

From bruised herbs only fragrant fluids stream. 

Through lacerations takes the spirit wing, 

And in the heart's long death-throe grasps true life, 

And seraph grows, while powers unearthly spring. 
It wraps itself in glory through its strife 

Of flesh and blood, till mortals homage bring, 
And deem it with angelic beauty rife. 

And thus the while upon thy brow I gaze, 
Methinks I feel what thou hast felt before ; 

The glory that our mortal eyes doth daze 
And with immortal robes doth wrap thee o'er 

As Israfeli's mantle, doth aye, blaze 



12 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

With tear-drops crystalled, and thy heart's red gore, 
Jewels that genius hath forever wore ! 

Fearful thy grandeur ! wealth we dare not crave, 

Exalteth thee above thy kind and kin ; 
Where drooped the rose- wreath laurels proudly wave, 

And presses there a crown but such could win ; 
O, may its splendor charm e'en to thy grave, 

Nor cease earth-songs to thee till thine in heaven 
begin. 



13 



TO FREDERIKA BREMER. 

Gentle, gifted, Norland's daughter, 
From the summits clear and high, 

Where of old, Adolphus rallied 
Armies, freedom's strength to try ; 

Preachest thou, as he, deliverance, 
From the spirit-fettered sigh. 

Oft I've fancied thee pronouncing, — 

Buried in a prophet spell, — 
While the shadow of thy childhood 

On the flowing Aura fell, — 
In the Finnish tongue, — ' Jumala ! ' l 

Mingling with thy life-notes well. 

Oft I 've fancied thy young bosom, 

W T ith a genius-sorrow there, 
Throbbing through the midnight darkness, 

(That but answered to despair,) 
To the mighty heart of nature, 

Which revealed thee treasures rare. 



14 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

And upon the morrow waking, 
To bright visions, far above 

All earth's dark and gathering cloud-mists, 
In Ideal realms to rove, 

Robed thyself in fadeless splendor, 
And thy bosom gushing love. 

And I marked me in my dreaming, 
Where the tongue of flame had prest, 

Where the Passions stately banquet 
Held, and left thy soul at rest ; 

Where the flood had swept in secret, 
And the cross left on thy breast ! 

Thou hast waked in thousand bosoms, 
Thoughts, and hopes, and visions pure, 

And hast made our household treasures 
And our own hearts, even, truer ; 

And a freedom from all bondage 
Would thy teachings mild ensure. 

Gentle art thou in thy bearing, 
Gentle in thy tone and word ; 

Though a fresh-leaved garland wearing, 
Breath of love hath often stirred, 

Braided while sweet maiden voices 
Breathing songs to thee were heard. 



TO FREDERIKA BREMER. 15 

Opening buds, from hill and forest, 
Have fond hearts together twined, 

Gathered round our quiet hearth-stones, 
On thy gentle brow to bind ; 

In return for richer treasures — 
Glowing treasures of the mind. 

Thus fair-gifted, from the Northland, 
Take the offerings that we bring ; 

Let the garland, hallowed incense 
Ever o'er thy garments fling, 

And refuse not the low reed-notes, 
With the simple lays we sing. 



16 



ON A PICTURE. 2 

THE TWO MARY'S AND THE ANGEL AT THE SEPULCHRE. 

Lo ! yonder in the east reddens the dawn, 

And the white mist has parted o'er the hills, 

Belting them round as with a silver cincture 

Set with pearls; while slowly drop the glistening gems 

Soft on the gentle waves of Cedron's stream. 

Not yet astir the busy throng amid 

Jerusalem ! Not yet beneath his load 

The weary camel rises from the earth ! 

Nor yet indeed the solemn matin hymn, 

From low disciple-voices tremulous 

With grief, breaks through the misty morning cloud ; 

Yet there she bends with flowing sunny locks, 

And parted lips, and clasped snowy hands, 

The Magdalen of old ; and by her side 

The dark-haired youthful Mother of the Lord, 

In mighty sorrow o'er his vacant tomb ? 

Perchance but yesterday they saw him there, 
As when from Calvary ensanguined o'er, 



ON A PICTURE. 17 

They laid him in that rock-hewn sepulchre, 

And now the place is empty where they gaze : — 

But who is this clasping the pallid robes 

That he hath left amid that garden tomb, 

And with a graceful finger confidant, 

Pointing toward the heaven, haileth with joy ? — 

'Tis recognised, the Gabriel of the Host 

Down from the throne of God ! his angel-wings, 

Scarce visible upon the solemn air, 

And though in the c long garments' draperied, 

As he were of the earth, yet well betrayed, 

Chief of the Heavenly Choir ! 

Behold ! how doth 
The canvas change and glow with holy joy, 
And the full glory of ecstatic hope : — 
Pause — listen — ye can almost hear the words, 
As with immortal accents erst they flowed, 
* He is not here, but risen to the sky ; 
See, on the pillow left the crown of thorns, 
Dropping with blood, and the long nails that pierced 
His flesh ; these only hath he left, — be cheered.' 

And ye do feel, led by the Artist's hand, 
A faith sublime that deepens as ye gaze, 
And bears the spirit on to Heaven's wide gates, 
Hung with the light that flashed from out this tomb, 
2 



18 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

And set with jewels of the tears that fell 
From mourning eyes, as bdellium of the wave, 
Or burning rubies priceless on the earth, 
On this first resurrection morn ! 

And yet 
Me thinks upon that Mary's lips waits still 
The question, with a doubtful pause — ' If thou 
Hast borne him hence, where thou hast laid him, tell V 
Though yet upon her heart lingers the thought 
In holiest memory of her loved brother, 
Lazarus, uprising from the opened grave, 
And the Lord's mightier power upon her own 
Sad, sinful soul ! Wonder and doubt, until 
At once the glowing picture breathes again 
Through her companion's face, earnest and clear, 
The faith that can light up the darkest tomb, 
And make its portals sweetest passage on 
To an unending and angelic life. 



And this it is to be an Artist ; thus 

To make the canvas speak with holiest truth, 

As language in sublimest utterance hath 

Not power ; and lead the soul freely to drink 

From fountains of high-born unuttered thought, 

Till human hearts bend down, as doth mine own 

Before the glory of the crown he wears ! 



19 



THE FALLEN EAGLE. 



Poor bird ! I do pity thee, 

With thy soiled and drooping wing, 
Wandering round Castalia's spring, 

And thy plumage plucked away. 

Nevermore, oh, nevermore, 
Shall thy mighty pinions shed, 
O'er the glorious hill-tops spread, 

Grandeur as of yore ! 

It is a woful sight to me ; 

And my heart is fainting like, 
As the stain of byre and dyke, 

On thy breast I see ! 

Thou wast wont to soar and sing, 
Mounting free, thou ' bird of Jove/ 
Till amid the heaven above, 

Thou didst poise thy wing. 



20 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Now, thou dost the pebbles dry- 
Turn, and gully out the earth, 
Reckless that thine eaglet birth, 

Was near the summer sky ! 

There is filth upon thy crest, 
There is blood upon thy beak, 
And thy tame heart do men seek 

To crush within thy breast ! 

Thy crown is scarred and torn, 

Thy white plumes draggled with the clay, 
And the fowler makes thee prey 

For his sport at morn ! 

And must it he that nevermore, 

Thou shalt mount and sing on high ? 
Or with the blue of yonder sky, 

Wrap thy glory o'er ? — 

For, lone bird, thou wast my care, 

Chased by the proud ones of the flock, 
Whose sharp cries they did but mock, 

As they cleft the air. 

As they wing and span the sea, 
Where thou silent droop'st alone, 
With shame and sorrow for thine own, 

Turn they not to see. 



THE FALLEN EAGLE. 21 

I leave thee — blinded of heaven's beams, 

Fallen from Olympia's crags ; 

Hiding ^mid the reeds and flags, 
By unhallowed streams! 

Laving in the stagnant pool, 

While the mighty ocean rolls, 

And broad rivers part the poles, 
Thy red wounds to cool. 

Soar — alas ! thou canst not soar, 

Plucked the shafts from out thy wing, — 
Well the sad notes may'st thou sing, 

Of that bird of yore ! 

Still my heart doth list thy cries, 
I could weep thy fallen fame ; — 
Would the Phoenix from the flame, 

It might yet arise ! 

All my soul doth pity thee, — 
Tears are brimming as we part, 
One deep prayer doth swell my heart, 

And that prayer for thee. 

All my soul doth pity thee, — 

Must I leave thee on the earth, 

Fallen from thy loftier birth ? — 
God yet set thee free. 



22 



THE TRUE POET. 

Poet of the heart, 

Delving in its mine, 
From mankind apart, 
Yet where jewels shine ; 
Heaving upward to the light, 
Precious wealth that charms the sight ; 

Toil thou still, deep down, 

For earth's hidden gems ; — 
They shall deck a crown, 
Blaze in diadems : 
And when thy hand shall fall to rest, 
Brightly jewel beauty's breast. 

Wipe the heavy sweat 

From thy lip and brow ; 
Where these gems are set, 
Proudly knowest thou ; 
While thou art breathing noxious air, 
They are sparkling every where. 



THE TRUE POET. 23 

Sparkling at the feast — 

Decking holiest things ; — 
Breastplate of high priest, 
Tiara of kings ! 
Who shall deem thee poor and low, 
While thou earth's diamond beds canst show ? 

Who shall turn in scorn, 

Though thy food be mean ? — 

'Neath thy garments worn 

Angel gifts are seen ! 

Sitt'st thou down to pine and weep, 

Where these mined gems do sleep ? 

Dig, — in darkness — damp, 
Where the vein doth run ; 
Let the cavern cramp, 
Feeling not the sun ; 
As thy bleeding palm hath prest, 
Cometh forth a jewel blest. 

Bring them, bring them up, 
With thy life-sweat free ! 
Guerdon to thy hope, 
Immortality ! 
Gems the humblest heart shall wear, 
And the loftiest presence bear ! 



24 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Pearls, in ocean's breast — 

Issues of thy wounds; 3 
Perfectest and best, 

Where the diver sounds, 
Deepest laceration show, 
Keenest anguish, bitterest throe ! 

Gather, gather on, 

As the lamp doth burn ; 
Proudest, loftiest one, 
For thy toil shall yearn ; 
And, when thou thy work hast done, 
Earth shall feel thy -presence gone ! 



25 



THE BROKEN SPIRIT'S RELEASE. 

Ye deem it well 
When drowsy infants press the mother's breast, 
When reach the distant fold the weary herd, 
When panting fledglings light upon the nest, 
Or lolling teams repose upon the sward, 
Released from toil. 

And ye are glad 
For the faint desert pilgrim at the shrine, 

The wanderer at nightfall sheltered with care ; 
For him whose blinded orbs see starlight shine, 
And a whole world with beauty bright and fair, 
Eternal clad. 

Then mourn not one 
For whose lorn heart a glorious life was sealed, 

More weary than at eve returning herd, 
Or 'neath the yoke the heated team afield, 
Or child at sunset, or the panting bird, 
But newly flown. 



26 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Nay, give him joy ; 
Tired pilgrim — wanderer the desert o'er, 

His staff beside the threshold or the shrine ; 
Him to whose longing eyes now cleaves no more 
The withering birth-mark darkening the divine ; 
Give shouts and joy. 



'THE POST OF HONOR.' 

TO J. T. F., ESQ. 

[On being presented with a copy of his Poems.] 

Poet, that 'Post' be thine: 
By sweet and gifted stave, 

By fragrant buds that twine, 
And leafy boughs that wave, 

Around, above thy manly brow, 

It shall be — nay, 'tis thine e'en now. 

And may its glory run, 

In ne'er retiring sheen, 
As Norr's reposing sun, 

From Avassaxa seen ; 
And many a reverent pilgrim climb, 
To view its splendor all sublime. 



27 



CHRISTMAS BELLS. 

Strike ! — 

From the silver orient, 

Hasteth the jewelled night; — 
Peal! — 

From her footsteps upward, 
Streameth the rosy light ! 

Strike ! — 

To the brow of morning, 

Clingeth a sparkling gem : — 
Peal ! — 

'T is the star of Shiloh, 

That paused o'er Bethlehem ! 

Strike! — 

With the Gabriel anthem 
Mingle your lofty tones ; — 
Peal! — 

For the day is brightening 
Over the misty zones ! 



' 28 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Strike! — 

Out from tower and turret, 

To mountain and the plains ; — 
Peal! — 

From the steepled altar, 
In loud and joyous strains ! 

Strike! — 

For the glorious day-dawn, 

To Ephrath's hills that clung ; ■ 
Peal ! — 

Angels swept their viols, 
And sweet hosannas sung. 

Strike! — 

For the lowly infant, 

Shadowed by seraph wings; — 
Peal! — 

For the Babe of Judah, 

The Mighty King of Kings ! 



29 



REQUIEM FOR EDGAR A. POE. 

Strike the anthem, bards and brothers, 

Softly sweep your many lyres ; 
Let the low and solemn requiem, 

Linger on their silver wires ! 

One hath broken from your number — 

Think not of his errors here — 
And hath laid him to a slumber, 

Beyond earthly hope or fear ! 

One hath broken from your number, 

With a harp of mightiest tone ; 
And hath passed through death's dread slumber 

Onward to the eternal throne ! 

Let the turf press lightly on him, 

Lay his lyre upon his breast ; 
And the laurels Fame had won him, 

Hang them o'er his place of rest. 



30 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Though they bear full many an earth-stain, 
Death's dark stream should wash away, 

All the mildew clinging to them, 
All the soiling of the clay ! 

Earth-stained laurels hanging heavy, 
With the cold and midnight dew ! 

Weep ye, brothers, it is mournful, 
Thus to decorate the yew ! 

Had the prayers of those availed him, 
O'er whose path his shadow fell, 

Darkening with its raven pinions 
Life's dim way, it had been well. 

But yet strike the anthem, brothers — 
Think not of his errors now — 

Mourn him, mourn his harp-strings broken, 
And the crushed wreath on his brow ! 

Take ye — take the scattered fragments, 
Lay them kindly at his breast ; 

Of the lyre he swept so wildly, 
Let them mark his place of rest ! 

Strike the anthem low and solemn, 

Let its mournful echo swell 
Through the 'haunted woodland' openings, 

Where the 'Ghouls' of ' Wier' do dwell. 



REQUIEM FOR EDGAR A. POE. 31 

O'er the 'dank tarn' of the 'Auber' 

Let its mournful numbers swell, 
And through i cypress vales Titanic,' — 

Paths his spirit loved so well ! 

Nevermore shall strains so mighty- 
Wind along that lakelet ' dim ; ' 

Nevermore shall float such music, 

None could sweep the Lyre like him ! 

Strike the anthem, then, ye brothers — 

Think not of his errors now — 
Mourn him — mourn his harp-strings broken, 

And the crushed wreath on his brow ! 



32 



THE THEBAN MAIDEN. 



AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY. 



I marvel, and my heart doth strangely thrill, 

As in thy actual presence here I stand, 

Thou maiden, daughter of the mighty Thebe ! 

They tell me thou wast beautiful in life, 

Fairest of Egypt's girls ; and that thine eye 

Was soft and lustrous, lovely in its hue, 

As were the young Gazelles' that dainty fed 

From out thy hand, tamed for thy pleasure ; or, 

That roamed the deserts of the Thebaid. 

And, aye methinks thou wast the worshipped one, 

Perchance of some proud boy, who coveted 

Thy beauty and thy precious smile, more than 

The honors of the Jewish priesthood e'en ; 

And who oft spent sweet truant April days, 

Gathering c rose-lilies ' from the flooded soil 

Where rolled the Nile's mysterious refluent wave, 

Or bright acacia flowers to deck thy hair ; 

Or sought for emeralds through the mountain's gorge 

To gem thy rounded arms, or clasp thy neck ! 



THE THEBAN MAIDEN. 33 

Would I might know thy line and history ; 

What wonder if thou hadst e'en prest the lips 

Of that sweet infant in his bulrush crib, 

Or marked the glory gathering round his brow, 

As forth he came from God's own presence, in 

The flaming bush ; or down from Sinai's mount, 

Lawgiver of the land, chosen of Heaven ! 

Nor should I mark it strange that thou didst view 

The cloud of plagues that darkened the proud walls 

Of Egypt's palaces, till Theban couches spread 

With richest drapery and broidered gems, 

For graceful Theban brides, were covered o'er 

With foulest insect swarms. 

Would thou would'st speak, 
And tell us of the columns, sculptured shafts, 
And ; avenues of Sphinxes miles in length,' 
And the colossi by the ' hundred gates ' 
Of that old city famed, its ancient wealth. 
Perchance (though lesser wonder thou) thou could'st 
Reveal all of the mighty Memnon fabled long, 
And witching all my sense to comprehend, 
And the Memnonides haunting his tomb 
As mourners seek the graves of kindred dead ; 
Or give .us truths of those responses seven, 
In joyful notes or mournful at the rise, 
And set of sun from out that temple, where 
3 



M VOICES OF THE PAST. 

His marble figure stood — mysterious yet ! 
Nor know we e'en but thou didst live and talk 
With Homer in his poet home, and canst 
Inform us whether he were blind or no, 
And tell us of his mighty wondrous lyre ! 

I long to see them break the sycamore shell 
And tear the stern sarcophagus away, 
That binds thee so ; for peradventure there, 
Within, we yet may find bold hieroglyphs, 
Inlaid with sweet acacia leaves and flowers, 
Of centuries agone, that shall declare 
Thy lineage, and make thy story clear. 

We hail the traveller from remotest realms 
With joy and gladness, wonder too ; but thy 
Strange presence here we greet with reverence 
And awe ; for thou art from far realms, and up, 
From Time's deep gulph, e'en from its morning 

hours, 
And saw'st its young blue dawn, as erst it sat 
Upon sublimest Horeb and on Sinai's top ! 



35 



MASSACRE OF THE NUNS OF ST. URSULA. 

AN INCIDENT IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Proudly through the streets of Paris, 
As the barbarous shout grew strong, 

Virgin voices swelled an anthem — 
; Veni Creator ,' — was the song. 

Onward to the field of slaughter, 
Clearer rose the notes and higher, 

Sweetly chanting — slowly marching — 
Moved that veiled and vestal choir. 

6 Veni Creator,' — sang the Abbess, 
' Veni Creator ,' — hymned the nun, 

As they bent them to the torture, 
With bared bosoms one by one ! 

'Veni Creator,' — on the ether, 
Still the distant valleys heard, 

And the chorus onward swelling, 
Grove and mountain forest stirred. 



36 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

. Feebler grew the tender echo 

As the work of Death went on ; 
Alto, now, and now Soprano, 
Hatji the fearful engine won. 

Fainter grew the solemn echo, 
As the work of Death went on ; 

Till upon the paling azure, 

Trembled one sweet voice alone ! 

By the guillotine deep crimsoned, 
In one ghastly altar pile 7 

Robed in garments of the vestal 
Youth and beauty lay the while ! 

Still the Abbess trilled the quaver, 
' Veni Creator, J — loud and long; 

Till the reeking blade fell changing 
To immortal notes the song ! 

O'er that ravaged cloister's ashes, 
'Neath the starlight and the sun^ 

Lingers still the heavenly chorus, 
Of the Abbess and the nun. 



37 



TO ALFRED TENNYSON. 

I know thee not — I dare not ask to know 
One whose whole soul is as a jewelled lute, 
With silver strings, not one of which is mute, 

But answering to soft airs that come and go, 

Through lengthened casements set in fretted walls, 
Or mournful varying, float through darkened halls, 

Where shouts and mirthful melodies are o'er. 
For e'en its far-off echo thrills my soul, 
Till all my being yields to its control, 

As lingering dreams of 6 days that are no more? 

1 do not ask to know, here in this life, 

This lower life, one who with seraph fold 
Binds to his bosom flashing gems and gold, 

A lyre immortal charming mortal strife ; 

My own weak heart might pale amid the spell, 

As in the presence of high Israfel. 

But in the glories of that angel sphere, 

Where song and sunshine keep the blissful bowers, 

And sweet refrains float up from Time's hushed hours, 
Then would I, as a blest one, linger near. 



38 



THE GRAVE OF MARY STACE WILLIS. 

FOR THE MAIDEN, IMOGEN. 

I paused beside it when the August sun 

Reddened the sloping west, 
And truant bees their golden prize had won, 

And birds turned toward the nest. 

And I would fain have struck my trembling lyre, 

For deep and saddened thought, 
In lingering longing rested on each wire, 

My own woak skill had taught. 

My fancy pictured on a foreign coast, 

One in sweet maidenhood ; 
The shadowed beauty of the Eden lost, 

The semblance of the good. 

The fond Ideal of a youthful Bard, 

Who to life's journeying went, 

Thus doubly girt with music strings that stirred 
To notes his fingers lent. 



THE GRAVE OF MARY STACE WILLIS. 39 

(For woman's heart is but a light-strung lute, 

With strangely varying keys ; 
And Love alone must tune it or *t is mute, 

Or sighing to the breeze.) 

With his rich burthens clasped, on wandered he, 

Till echoes sweet gushed forth, 
In images of song, and life in thee, 

Gladdening the way of earth. 

While from her soul went joy and glorying 

E'en in a stranger land ; 
And pride, that swelled it as a treasured thing, 

His poet-being spanned. 

But soon amid that spot where Death holds sway, 

Opened the flowery sod ; 
And gathered there a sorrowing group to lay, 

Beauty before its God. 

'Tis many a summer since, in violet hues, 

The angels set their lamps 
Around that grave, hung with the glistening dews, 

To cheer those charnel damps. 

But as I lingered gushing tear-drops crept, 

Inward upon my heart ; 
Where she beneath the seraph pinions slept 

From the beloved apart. 



40 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

And yet as that young being who so blest, 

Safe o'er the wildering wave, 
Leaving fond memories deep in manhood's breast, 

And a fresh garden grave. 

Were 't mine as hers to leave one loosened string, 
'Mid the proud thrilling chords, 

That through my life have won its worshipping, 
Deeper than syllabled words ; 

Then, Father, would I waft the secret sigh 

Out on the summer breath ; 
With earth and heaven deep pictured on the eye, 

Be mine an early death. 

Joy — joy like her to reach the soul's abode, 

Even at early noon ; 
And meet in blessed commune with the God, 

Who gave the high heart-boon. 



41 



F. S. 0. 4 

A FUNERAL LAY FOR THE GIFTED. 

The panting dove hath reached the garner nest, 
Leaving her fledglings at their early meal ; 

With lifted pinions o'er her snowy breast, 

She fled to seek her rest long e'er the vesper-peal : 

Her tender mate in wonder saw her spread, 
Her unclasped wing to cleave the ether through, 

And from his own proud shafts such radiance fled, 
He shivered his pale plumes and longed to follow too. 

Woe ! that the summer day seemed all too long, 
Thou bird of love fresh garlanded thy crest ; 

Thy bosom swelling with the tide of song, 

And fame's proud jewels set redundant on thy breast. 

Woe ! gentle minstrel for the glowing sun, 

That kissed thy brow o'ershadowed by no cloud ; 

So thou did'st faint with thy proud burthen on, 

W'hile noontide's softest airs its music chords did 
shroud. 



42 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Nor summer beauty nor the autumn breath, 

When languid airs on homesick flowers recline, 

Nor fainting love poising the myrtle wreath, 

May e'er beguile thee more from yonder angel 
shrine, 

As from our midst thy spirit sought the sky, 

Stirring the holy atmosphere around ; 
I felt thy hallowed presence sweeping by, 

And pressed my own pale lips and bent me to the 
ground. 

Now rising from that posture pallid still, 

I reach my shrunken palm with humble flower, 

Some lingering space upon thy grave to fill, 

They mournful deck for thee, who hope a longer 
hour. 

Thus bring we choicest strewments for thy tomb, 
Moist with fresh dews our eyes ne'er cease to weep ; 

Whose odor shall the sepulchre perfume, 

Where clasping thy fond lyre thou dost too early 
sleep. 

With blossoms sweet bind we the basil leaf, 
And the rich fragrance of Hymettus' thyme ; 

And folded bud and flower of beauty brief, 

That droop and fall e'er touched by winter's early 
rime. 



f. s. o. 43 

For loveliest, tenderest things should deck thy grave, 
Whose gushing song was as the melody 

Of woodland voices, where green branches wave, 
Or lighter carol e'en of some sweet fledgling free. 

Henceforth a living garland binds thy name, 

(Long cherished word from thousand hearts ne'er 
riven,) 
That for thy sake shall be a household claim, — 

The gathered flowers of earth yet smelling sweet of 
heaven ! 



44 



[JEAN MARGARET DAVENPORT. 

I shame to worship at a maiden's shrine, 

L who have been a maiden, — am not — never 
more — 
Have known in life all that is deemed divine, 

Love, joy and hope intense, (nor is their glorying 
o'er.) 
And when the blasts of sorrow swept me down, 

Prouder and mightier e'en did the drenched spirit 
rise, 
Deeming it could unhumbled reach the crown, 

Unmastered evermore till it obtained the skies. 
But now an artless girl leads my proud years, 

As a weak, timid lamb to slaughtering sacrifice, 
My heart dissolved, dropping in maiden tears, 

While all victorious o'er it, awe and homage rise ; 
For all divinest passions gathered at her will, 
In sweet, subduing power from her pure utterance 
thrill. 



45 



TO A DISTINGUISHED FOREIGN AUTHOR. 

I have no gorgeous gift to fling 

In homage at thy feet ; 
No courtly words an offering, 

In cadence ever sweet, 

As for thy presence meet. 

For I am all unused to frame 
Words for an ear like thine, — 

I own a heart whose glowing flame 
Burns as a vestal shrine, 
And this alone is mine. 

Stranger this flame doth proudly rise, 

In welcome to thee here; — 
No censer swaying from the skies, 

With angel presence near, 

Could bear an offering freer. 

What though His as a far-off star, 
That faints as breaks the dawn ; 

While nearer orbs more brilliant far^ 
Of prouder glory born, 
Wait still beside the morn ; 



46 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

This heart hath sweetly quaffed the rich 
And sparkling lore of thine ; 

That charmed fount as those for which 
Faint weary pilgrims pine, 
Swelling at day's decline. 

Thus when the eve shall gather round, 
Garlands shall grace its brim, 

By lithesome virgin fingers bound, 
And old men o'er its rim, 
Bend to the vesper hymn. 

From it may streams forever flow, 
Bordered with loveliest flowers ; 

And o'er it sunshine ceaseless glow, 
Gladdening the lingering hours, 
Fragrant from myrtle bowers. 

And when at last the earth shall claim 
The gushing spring it gave, 

Fond hearts shall trace a marbled name, 
Where shrunk the sparkling wave, 
But never there a grave. 



47 



TO 



Oh, lovely is thy Poet home beside the ocean strand, 
So wild, so sweet, so beautiful, o'erlooking sea and land ; 
A fitting haunt for one like thee with minstrel heart 

and soul, 
In lone companionship with heaven, whose bride the 

angels stole. 

Around thee surge unceasingly the billows in their 

might ; 
In their majestic beauty spread through all the solemn 

night ; 
While seabirds on their restless wing above the mighty 

deep, 
Around thy sacred solitude sublimest vision keep. 

Out from their caves glance lovingly as beckoning thee 

away, 
The Undines with their starry locks dressed in the 

sparkling spray ; 






48 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

And all abroad are voices heard in tones thou lovest 

well, 
That evermore keep tune with thine, in one sweet 

music spell. 

Blissful it were to dwell amid this glowing imagery, 

Close mated with the glorious things beneath the arch- 
ing sky ; 

With such a world of beauty round, reflecting the far 
heaven, 

Sure one might bend in worship down and hope to be 
forgiven. 



But yet methinks a mighty grief upon thy shadowy 

form, 
Hath spent its fury, yet still left the spirit young and 

warm, 
As softly on life's misty cloud its quivering pinions play, 
While sleepless longings swell beneath as in thy earlier 

day! 

Psyche ! and was it dealt as curse when man from 

Eden came, 
That he should walk with silvered locks, yet heart of 

reddening flame ? 



to . 49 

That when his hand the Lyre's sweet strings in dalliance 

should sweep, 
The echo of its burning notes should ne'er within him 

sleep ? 

That, when on Genius-wings he mounts, though dewy- 
mists thick fall 

Upon his sight, not even then should his soul's freshness 
pall ? 

And though the blood course sluggishly and life itself 
grow old, 

The gifted heart should still be young, and not a feel- 
ing cold ! 

Then may'st thou the redeeming hope within thy bosom 

hoard, 
Giving it holiest welcome there, thou lone and hoary 

bard ; 
That when shall pass away these years of burthen and 

of ruth, 
The soul's surroundings then shall be in keeping with 

its youth. 

Still lovely is thy Poet-home, shrining a heart and lyre 
E'er thrilling to the beautiful, and wreathed with living 

fire! 
I pause and bend, for thou dost seem, o'erlooking the 

proud sea, 
A spirit of the leaping wave, its own Divinity ! 



50 



"THE INDEPENDENT BEGGAR." 
(a picture in the athenaeum gallery.) 

Go ! with thy heaped up gold, — I crave it not 

If with it I must take the crystalled rock 

Embedded in thy bosom, cleaving to 

The ore ! Gold ! — I do need it much, alas ! 

Transmuted to the bread for which e'en now 

My children faint ! But rather would I see 

Them starve, and these lean hands scoop out 

The coarse sand from some lonely Potter's Field 

To sepulchre their beauty, than that they 

Should see Heaven's light through casements tapestried, 

Dishonoring the proud humanity 

He gave to them. Gold ! gold ! and what is it ? 

If with it one must take a niggard's heart, 

And clench it in his fist from virtue's need ; 

Or build high monuments to his own praise ! 

Nay more — if in the purchase he must give 

The bond, making it sure with sign and seal, 

To dam within his soul the thousand streams, 

That trickle from the basins God hath set 



THE INDEPENDENT BEGGAR. 7 



51 



Beneath the cloud, and make the heart 
A Felix Araby laden with living 
Odors as of Paradise and Heaven ! 

'Tis not the gift, but 'tis the sympathy 

Unquelled, stirring to the small courtesies 

Of life, to high and low alike rendering 

The gift spontaneous, that shall make 

Man noble — great — and tempt the angels there 

To write his name, where erst Ben Adhem's stood. 



God's paupers are the rich ; not they who gird 

The broidery of eastern looms around a heart 

Obsequious to other gains alone : 

And when shall rise that eastern star once more, 

As rise it will, it shall be known and felt 

A heavenly truth ; and parchments that enrol 

Earth's sordid creeds, shall shrivel and become 

Blackened and dim in archives wealth had locked. 



52 



THE NAMELESS ONE. 

A PASTILE SKETCH. 

One I know of patient bearing, 

On life's darkened side ; 
Earnest for the morning's wearing — 

Martyr since a bride. 

Hers a beauty like the blossom 

That the Dead Sea laves, 
Or a star at misty midnight, 

Mirrored in its waves. 

Hers a spirit yearning — burning — 

Like the famished fire, 
Choked by human widowed ashes, 

'Neath the funeral pyre. 

Heart, and mind, and soul prophetic, 

Mantled as a seer, 
Gifted with a poet's vision, 

And yet nameless here. 



THE NAMELESS ONE. 53 

But that spirit ever longing, 

From its shades of night, 
Out from life's unhallowed wronging 

Yet shall cleave the right. 

When the earth, up from its banquet 

And its revel song, 
Shall cast off its surfeit — madness — 

To despise the wrong ; 

When the world shall wake to justice, 

And to pity's claim, 
And shall wash itself from error, 

She shall have a name. 



54 



A LEGEND OE PLYMOUTH EORGE. 

Darkness o'er the sleeping village, hallowed by its 

Pilgrim rock, 
With its quaint old halls and hearth-stones, and its 

roofs of tile and block : 
Denser grew it on the billow, washing up the ancient 

shore, 
Fertiled by the wholesome breezes from the northern 

Labrador ; 
Until shadows of the midnight rested on each temple 

dome. 
On the grave of saint and pilgrim, exiled from their 

vintage home. 

But amid the nighf s drear stillness, shrouded by its 

antique walls, 
From one lighted mansion echoed mirthful tones and 

merry calls. 
There a gray-haired sire was sitting, gazing on the 

joyous throng, 



A LEGEND OF PLYMOUTH FORGE. 55 

Wrapt in visions of his youthtime, when Ms heart was 
blithe and strong ; 

Startled was he in his dreamings, as their merry ac- 
cents urge, 

' Gather patten, cowl and mantle, let us, let us to the 
Forge.' 

And that heated Forge cast upward day and midnight 

each the same, 
From its blackened spiral chimney, lurid smoke and 

gushing flame ; 
Making darkness even blacker as its flashing fires 

ascend, 
Like the burning pit ideal with its quenchless flame 

and fiend ! 
Soon that merry group were pausing from its furnace 

scarce aloof, 
Gazing on its figures spectral glancing, 'neath its high 

arched roof. 

And with motions quick and darting, making fearful 

all the spot, 
Bore they forth the fused metal from its caldrons fierce 

and hot ; 
And their ghastly faces reddening with the heated fiery 

glow, 
As they in the unforged iron, to the boiling fusion 

throw. 



56 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Each his fellow comprehending, while the burning 

sheets they toss, 
To the mystic crushing roller once divided from the 

dross ; 
Each his fellow comprehending, while the startled group 

aghast, 
Watch the forgeman with his poker, stirring, stirring 

quick and fast ! 

Then that heated poker casting, as the leper parts the 

pool, 
In the ever waiting fountain, with colossal arms to 

cool ; 
And anon a colder grasping, stirring still the melted 

ore, 
Till the frighted group were gathered at the threshold 

of the door : 
And the fiery sparks flew thicker from the gloating 

flashing flame, 
Glancing from the forgeman's apron hurtless as the 

lion tame ! 

Tubal Cain was but an infant to that Samothracian 

band ; 
They might charm the ancient Hades with his trident 

in his hand ! 
Soon a lurid light came flashing with a fearful horrid 

glare, 



A LEGEND OF PLYMOUTH FORGE. 57 

All that throng transfixed close shrouding, and that 

portal's threshold stair ! 
Went abroad a fearful echo, as of horror and affright, 
And that gray-haired sire in waiting, saw no more his 

charge that night ! 

And ihe village missed their mirth tones, long from 

many a hearth and hall, 
Missed their figures by the wayside, and their shadows 

dn the wall ! 
While around there went a whisper of the burning 

quenchless pit, 
And a minor that those reckless ones were for its fires 

most fit ! 
And the traveller, as he visits, now that ever flaming 

For£e, 
Hears the swooping of strange pinions o'er its heated 

gushing gorge ! 
And the flam^ light upward streaming casts athwart its 

vaulted\roof, 
Fitful shadows stranger glancing as to tread of cloven 

hoof! \ 



58 



NIAGARA. 

AFTER THE CATASTROPHE OF JULY 20, 1853. 

Hadst thou not fame enough, Niagara, 

That thou shoulcPst picture thy bold, awful front 

With human agony, and mingle there 

The paling death-shriek with thy mighty roar? 

Did thy great wonders tire or pall the sense, 
With the majestic beauty of God's hand 
Daguerreotyped forever, all around, 
And emptying still unwearied yonder dep.hs — 
In grandeur infinite, as fathomless they roll — 
That thou thy rainbow with a promise n3W 
Should^st set— of human tears ? 

Hast thou come in 
Competitor with man, in his low trad3, 
His cursed ambition for some mighter name, 
That thou shoukPst strew thy shore? with broken hearts, 
And stripe thy foam with blood ? 



NIAGARA. 59 

The mighty North 
With its Aurora and its ; midnight sun,' 
Its palaces of ice, more beautiful 
Than jewelled thrones ; its secrets undivulged, 
Dismaying to the mariner who seeks 
A passage through, yet grand to human thought, 
Had come to kneel to thee : The East and South, 
Proud of their gorgeous skies, their tapestry 
Of purple, hung by angels round their scoriae streams, 
And their great miracles of beauty wrought 
By the }^oung ages in their strength, — now hoar, 
In temples of the past set fair to view ; 
Their kingly glories and their genius-skill, 
Forever working with the All-Divine, 
From earth's abysses given up to man : 
Their flame-hued, mid-air life, burthened with song, 
Flashing, like fiery meteors, 'neath the blue, 
Glorious as when in Eden, perched at Eve's 
Right hand, and chanting to HiddekePs waves, 
Came up to thee to worship and adore. 

The West, that claimed thee, and that set thee far 
At her left hand, though nearest to her heart, 
As in sublimest awe of thy great voice, 
Forever telling of her strength, and His 
Who built thy underwork and laid thy piers, 
To be her glory as His own,— -the West, 



60 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Whose far-off bounds extend still on, and on, 
With its deep heart quick throbbing to a pulse 
Of proud humanity the wide earth cannot mate, 
Had named thee crown and glory of her sphere ; 
And set her stars above thee, clustering high, 
And placed her children round to watch thee, day 
And night, as God's prime wonder, masterpiece, 
Laid down before her, for high purpose hers. 
And now thou hast turned on her thy big heart, 
Committed fratricide with her brave sons, 
Who loved to cradle on thy rocking waves, 
And match, as younger brothers, palms with thee, 
And hid them at thy feet — bold murderer ! 
E'en when the rescuing hand, with daring grasp, 
Had well-nigh matched thee in its startled strength, 
And wrested back to lowly hearths, where now 
A spectre sits vapored with blasted hope, 
What human love had sanctified and made 
Kingly, as in kings' bosoms dwells ! 

God help 
Them on thy shores w T ho saw the strife far out, 
The desperate strife of Life with Death, and scarce 
At odds, through the long, agonizing hours 
Of sun and star! The rallying, maddened nerve, 
With superhuman leap clearing the wave 
And clinging to the air ; the arm stretched forth 



NIAGARA. 61 

In wild despair ; the awful shriek and plunge 
Into the dark abysm at thy feet ! 
And then the breathless hush in palsied hearts, 
That almost leaped thy depths to strike thee back 
To a relenting pause ! 

God shadow them, 
The widows, orphans, mothers of the lost, 
If such there be, and gather with them round 
Their humble board, where Death sits foremost in 
The carver's seat, and in the choicest chair, 
Exultant of the anguish he has caused. 

And hang thou now, Niagara, on thy shield 

The conqueror's arms — e'en Death's — impaled with 

thine : 
Henceforth, thou wonder of our land, thou hast 
A double fame ; and when from distant climes 
Shall come the burthened traveller to thee, 
In homage of his heart, shall mingle there 
A tenderer thought, and holier tears shall dew 
The jutting rock above thy fearful gulf, 
From fountains stirred as by an angel's wing 
To pity's throb, whose sacred waters have 
A cleansing, refluent wave ! 



62 



BETHESDA'S POOL. 

Beneath Jerusalem's high sparkling fanes, 

And brazen turrets of her temple dome, 

The humble porches of Bethesda oped, 

And showed a gladdening fountain, clear and bright, 

And cool, of living waters there. 

Hard by- 
Reared hallowed Olivet his heathy crest, 
While silent at his foot went Cedron's brook, 
Turbid and black with sacrificial blood, 
In gloomy sadness on, hasting to yield 
Its murky tribute to that foetid sea, 
Fearful Asphaltites ; and winding round, 
Darkly enclosed Gethsemane, that garden vale 
Of prayer, of agony, and bloody sweat, 
Where solemnly on evening's breeze was heard 
From Jesus' lips, in resignation mild, 
c Not will of mine, but Father thine be done.' 

Bethesda, house of mercy, pity, called, — 
And underneath its lowly arches lay, 



BETHESDA'S POOL. 63 

Or by its grooveless columns leaned they faint, 
A group, a ' multitude ' of helpless ones, 
Each gazing anxious on its waveless pool ; 
When, lo, an angel form is seen to stand 
Down by the water's verge, with pinions spread, 
Fanning its gentle surface, and at once, 
Its cool, refreshing drops are bathing free, 
The weary waiting, impotent, and halt, 
And suddenly they leap, healed and restored. 

Hath Water such a power to renovate 

And heal, that the diseased and lame, 

And feeble ones, from Solyma's dark dens 

And the infected atmosphere around 

The borders of the sea of Galilee, 

And from Judea's mountain passes far, 

By multitudes should joyous haste, 

To touch and taste it at Bethesda's pool ? 

Ay, hath it, and a power beyond it all. 

More than the body it doth renovate, 

More than the withered limb restore, or purge 

The gangrene of the flesh. It lifteth up 

The mind long prostitute and prostrate cast, 

And to the wretch in gloomy darkness pent, 

Wlio hath his dwelling pestilent, far down, 

Amid the lowest sewers of the earth, 

It giveth life anew, and openeth wide 

A pass by which he may arrive at Heaven. 



64 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Inebriate, by the shady pool, or fount, 
Or running stream, rock smitten, leaping on, 
With thy drained cup, and burning fever'd tongue, 
Sit earnest down, and raise the clear cool draught 
Up to thy lip, though with a palsied hand, 
And angel errand to thy parching thirst, 
Nay, to thy very soul, shall bless the deed ; 
And thou shalt leap with life and joy as they 
Who from infirmity set free, all cleansed, 
From out Bethesda's porches shouting, passed. 



65 



WOMAN, 

Woman, toiling, toiling ever, 
Heedless of the world's regard ; 

For thine own, or for thy neighbor, 
Questionest of thy reward ? 

Toiling day and night incessant, 

Mid thy household mirth or wail ; 
With thy slight frame worn and feeble, 

And thy thin lips pressed and pale ; 
Reckless of thy morning slumber, 

Soothing grief and soothing want, 
Blessing childhood, age and manhood — 

Ever, ever ministrant ; 

By the bed of pain and anguish, 
Where man's sterner spirit quails, 

Watcher with the stars of midnight, 
Failing not when all hope fails ; 
5 



66 VOICES OF. THE PAST. 

And e'en yet still firmly sitting, 

By thy silent, shrouded dead ; 
Kneeling calm, yet lone and hopeless, 

For the shadow o'er thee spread ; 
Art thou not as man heroic, 

Though no wreath thy brow entwines ; 
Though thy name be written never, 

On earth's fair and gilded lines ? 

Art thou not as man heroic, 
Toiling though in solitude ;. 

With thy meek heart asking nothing, 
But approval of the good ? 

Art thou not as man heroic, 

Bending not 'neath plumed crest; 
Dost thou not thy country honor, 

With no star upon thy breast ? 
Toil'st thou not, like him, as nobly, 

Binding wounds his sternness made; 
Drying oft the tear that would not 

In the brimmed fount be stayed ? 

Though thy spirit's faith be sinking, 
For the harsh and bitter word, 

Yet thou folio west the sickle, 
Careful for thy cherished lord. 



WOMAN. 67 

Hast thou not the meed of labor, 

As the weariness it brings ; 
Though thou fellest not the forest 

For the palaces of kings ? 
Though thou smitest not the anvil, 

Though thou breakest not the clod ? 
Noble the reward thou earnest — 

Love of man, and love of God ! 

Though thou openest not the furrow, 
Though thou strewest not the seed, 

Though thou bindest not the harvest, 
Thine is toil the world shall heed. 

Though the herd thou never foldest, — 

Tendest not the clustering vine, 
Still amid the shout of ' Labor J 

Ask not what reward is thine. 
While amid the pride of f labor,' 

(Glory, glory, is its cry;) 
Ask not if thy toil be wasted, 

Or forgotten thou shalt die. 

Smiling brighter, clasp thy infant, 

Leaning trustful on thy breast ; 
Hold thy patience w T ith the aged, 

Till he reached his final rest. 



68 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Press thy lip, lest thy complaining 

Be by others ill-advised, 
Thy infirmities forgetting — 

His, not thine, are sympathized. 
Bend unwearying o'er fond childhood, 

Smile amid its waywardness ; 
Bear with erring youth in kindness, 

Bless him who once vowed to bless. 

Up, among the weary, wo-worn, 

In the lowly, tearful home, 

Find thy duty and thy pleasure, 
i 

Thy reward shall surely come. 



69 



THE DISCOURAGED ARTIST. 5 

A MARBLE BASSO-RELIEVO. 

Blessed to me is the lesson 

I have gathered up to-day ; 
And my fainting soul is breathing 

Freer on its upward way. 
'Tis a little thing can teach us, 

And where'er the Poet turns, 
Start before him springs refreshing, 

While he drinks from wreathed urns. 

I had wondered, I had sorrowed, 
O'er the Artist's struggling lot ; 

O'er the Poet in his chamber, 
With a mighty soul forgot. 

One I sadly yet remember, 

Straying from the archangel choir ; 
As if sinning he had fallen, 

Yet retained the immortal Lyre ! 
(Now an angel's harp he smiteth, 

Of scarce sweeter notes — or higher !) 



TO VOICES OF THE PAST. 

One whose lightest cord's soft thrilling, 
Brought the listening seraphs near; 

And if tears could well in heaven, 
They had wept such strains to hear ! 

But from his entrancing numbers, 

Mortals coldly turned away ; — 
(Wonder not that error found him, 

Where his chilled heart shivering lay ;) 
And the night-wind swept his pillow, 

And the night-dew drenched his head, 
Thus while waiting for the morning, 

His proud spirit fainting, fled! 

So they spread their wounded pinions, 
The sweet 6 poets of the air,' 

O'er a blood-bedaggled plumage — 
Shafts the fowler hath laid bare ; 

And betake them to the forest, 
Nevermore his haunts to share ! 

I remember his last anguish, 

I remember his last word, 
Breaking from the depths within him, 

By the Mary Mother heard ; 
As a strain of deathless music, 

From a deep despairing, stirred ! 



THE DISCOURAGED ARTIST. 71 

But an emblem here hath' taught me, 

On a snowy tablet spread ; 
Evermore hath Genius faltered, 

With dark clouds above its head ! 

And I welcome the sweet lesson, 

As I welcome truth and right ; 
That amid its soul despairing, 

And the darkness of its night, 
Shall an unseen, hand replenish, 

In its lamp the quenched light. 

? Tis a lesson to be treasured 

By the fainting Genius soul ; 
When the dying flame hath wasted, 

The pure oil within the bowl. 

Lesson that shall rouse the Artist, 

From the breathless syncope ; 
From the fiery, brain-sick fever, 

On his life's dark maddening sea ; 
To complete his proud Ideal, 

For an Immortalitv. 



72 



FOR ONE I LOVED. 

Let in the breath of the joyous Spring, 
Let in the light where the maiden lies ; 

Unclose the morn, that her purple wing, 
May fan, and unseal the sleeper's eyes. 

Bring hither the beauty of buds and flowers, 

Let the ringing notes of life, 
Break over the sepulchre's drear hours, 

In a sweetly solemn strife. 

Alas ! alas ! it is silent still, 

And the slumberer stirreth not ; 
The day unshadoweth not the will 

In the chill of that darkened spot ! 

Even yet a fearful hush doth rest, 

Through the vault where the loved they bore ; 
White robes still adorn the fair one's breast, 

And Death keeps the bridal door ! 



FOR ONE I LOVED. 73 

A lustrum hath gone since I saw her last, 

In the primal bloom of youth ; 
With the glow on her cheek and lip, where passed 

The sweet, early gush of truth. 

In the laughing vein and the joyous heart, 

Doth the worm its revels swell ; 
Yet keepeth my spirit a vigil apart, 

Looking up where the angels dwell. 

There flasheth the light from her smiling face, 

There keepeth the soul its tune ; 
And again by her side to find my place ? 

Shall be the hoped-for boon. 



74 



LOVE AND WISDOM. 

Love went forth one dewy morn, 
With a figure by his side ; — 

He, of smiles and roses born, 
She, a sober, earnest guide. 

With his quiver, on he sped, 
Holding Wisdom by the hand, 

Where the softening shadows led, 
And the fragrant breezes fanned. 

Weary grew his little feet, 

And he spread his glossy wings, 

Fancying he thus should meet 
Angels, with their shadowings. 

Wisdom still his fingers pressed, 
And where blossoms scent the sky, 

Bade him there his limbs to rest, 
Nor again attempt to fly. 



LOVE AND WISDOM. 75 

Love grew pouty all at once, 

And he wished his bands were riven ; 

Wisdom checked him for a dunce, 

That his short wings sought the heaven. 

So she fled his tiny grasp, 

While amid sweet buds he pined, 
Ever for a seraph clasp, 

That he dreamed the earth enshrined. 

Gathering up the crushed flowers near, 

Wept he tears of eloquence ; 
And, in search of angels here, 

He has- wandered ever since. 



76 



DANTE .« 

Thrice have I crossed my breast before the hallowed 

stone, 
Thrice bent and touched the earth in wonder, lone, 
For thee, ' great' Dante ! thus embodied there, 
With all thy sad severity of air, 
And heavenly greatness, mixed with earthly care, 
As deeply loving yet amid despair ! 

The clasped volume in thy marble hand, 
Whose stony leaves no fingers yet have spanned, 
Seems as with burning thoughts all written o'er, 
From the vast treasures of thy sad heart's lore ; 
On every page, in every line I see 
The record of thy Beatrice and thee ; 
From the far ages of the distant time, 
Comes back the glory of that love sublime, 
Lighting the marble as with hallowed flame 
That circles round the dying martyr's name ! 

Thy mourning soul pouring its pensive lay, 
Along the lonely Arno's silvery way, 



DANTE. 77 

Speaks to my vision from the chiselled stone, 
And in its sacred solitude alone, 
Fills all my being with an awe divine, 
That bids me bend and make the holy sign. 
And more — while pausing thus me thinks I see 
Thy weeping spirit from its thraldom free, 
Through the dark ways of its 'Inferno' passed 
And at the fountain of all Love at last, 
Quenching its deepest thirst ; while life's Ideal 
Long mournful hymned — lost Beatrice, the feal — 
Thou now dost clasp, as the bright blissful Real. 

Before thee thus in numbers all untaught 
I shrink in thy great presence as to naught ; 
Thine, greatest of thy time as still thou art 
Greatest, and father of the Poet Art. 

O, sacred Power, illustrious Art divine ! 
Making the marble like the spirit's shrine, 
To glow with thought and radiant as with soul, 
Where'er thou holdest thy sublime control, 
And through long ages treasurest for the eye 
The semblance of Earth's greatness, though its pres- 
ence die ! 



78 



THE SCATTERED HOUSEHOLD. 

Mother, thou wast happier early, 
When thy little ones were near ; 

When they gathered to thy bosom 
With a heavenly trust and fear. 

Thou didst think then that the future 
Would a glorious presence bring ; 

And thou longedst for the summer 
Of that brightly opening spring. 

Ay, thou longedst for the manhood 
Of the infants at thy knee ; 

In thy soul how sweetly dreaming 
Full-eared harvest it should be. 

But, alas ! a cheating vision ! 

Never wast thou blest as then ; — 
Children are the mother's treasures, 

And the world's when they are men. 



THE SCATTERED HOUSEHOLD. 79 

Now how often look'st thou tearful, 

To their empty cradle-bed, 
Yearning there again to pillow 

In sweet sleep each wanderer's head. 

Sighing, weeping, almost praying, 
That e'en backward yet may turn 

The dark shade upon the dial, 
And their infancy return. 

Never had thy soul such sorrow, 

Never loneliness as now, 
With thy heart's fond one beside thee, 

And his kiss upon thy brow. 

For a mis;htv void is round thee, 

That not e'en his heart can fill ; 
Lost to thee the tender nurslings 

Whose soft pulse to thine did thrill. 

Souls of thy soul, dearer to thee 
Than all earth could give beside ; 

And thy heart looks yearning for them, 
Over sea and kingdom wide. 

Far off, o'er the shining gold dust, 

On the Sacramento plains, 
One is stooping, half forgetting 

Thee, amid the glittering grains. 



80 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

And another on the billows 
Of the ocean deep and dark, 

Linketh to that life his heart-chords — 
Dearest home, the sheeted bark. 

Others, from the south isles scattered, 
To the Kremlin's ashes far — 

In the pride of earnest manhood, 
Worshipping some brighter star. 

And around thy hearth-stone never 
Shall the truants group again, 

In one circle, as in childhood, 

Though thy tear-drops fall like rain. 

But remember, thou art selfish, 
Thus to hold them to thy breast ; 

All abroad God's world doth need them, 
Laboring to make it blest. 

And I tell thee, trust in Heaven, 
Its bright home is near at hand ; 

There thou yet may 'st gather round thee 
Thy loved wanderers in one band. 



81 



SERAPHELI'S HYMN. 

I know that thou wilt think of me, 

When summer leaves are green, 
And summer buds look freshly out, 

From morning's dewy sheen ; 
And when the twilight gathers dusk, 

And distant hills are dim, 
Thou'lt think of me, and sadder strains ' 

Shall close thy evening hymn. 

I know that thou wilt think of me, 

When noontide shadows fall ; 
And silent sitt'st thou at thy board, 

In thy lone cottage hall ; 
Thou wilt remember there a guest, 

On angel-errand borne ; 
And mid her tears her prayers for thee, 

At evening and at morn. 

And when bright Hesperus takes the throne, 

Queen of the many stars, 
And in faint streams of shimmering light, 

Breathes through thy lattice bars ; 
6 



82 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Thou wilt remember that her eye, 

Looked from the night's blue heaven. 

On the wild worship of thy soul, 
That to mine own was given. 

Amid thy many careless loves, 

Thy passion rose for me, 
A will — untempted and unsought — 

Dread spontaneity. 
A life within thy life, thou saidst, 

The power of Destiny, 
O'ershadowing all the past, from which 

Nor thou, nor I, could flee. 

Thus when at maddened Pleasure's lure, 

Thy lip shall burn to press, 
The cheek of one more frail, or leap 

Thy pulse at her caress ; 
Thou'lt think of this, and sense shall pall, 

Feeling my spirit near, 
And gentle words in holier tones, 

Shall charm away thine ear. 

And wheresoe'er thy wanderings lead — 
Whate'er thine earthly ties, 

I know that thou wilt give to me 
Thy holiest memories ; 



SERAPHELl's HYMN. 83 

I know that with thine every dream, 

Shall mingle thoughts of me, 
As of a seraph winged from heaven, 

With tenderest love for thee. 

And that far down the tide of life, 

Thou 'It yearning look for me ; 
As views the mariner through the mist, 

The wreck he left at sea ; 
While mournful to his thought comes back, 

Its freight he failed to save, 
That far beyond his reach doth glow, 

And sparkle 'neath the wave. 

And I do know thou'lt think of me, 

Be what thou wilt the while, 
When death's dread glimmering comes on, 

And for one angel-smile, 
Thy failing sight looks wandering forth, 

And dimmer grows the past- — 
I know that in that earnest hour, 

Thou 'It think of me — the last ! 



84 



THE POET SEER. 



A FRAGMENT. 



Man hath great power and skill ; he doth decide 
Upon past merits of the angels ; e'en 
Dareth he to question of the quality 
Of Gabriel's hymn ! He doth essay to bring 
The loftiest down to his own erring rule ; 
He strippeth off the robe and from the brow, 
Hurleth the crown of kings ! He doth presume 
To tear the ephod, and the twelve-set gems, 
And mitre, from high priest, and doth divide 
To right and left, the gemmed and purple-robed, 
And the more lowly clad ; judging with pride 
The inner by the outer man ! — false taste. 

But one doth silent stand before him oft, 
And cringing not, (for he doth humble here 
His heart before no presence save his God's ;) 
With deep^set sunken eye, and feeble voice, 
But with strong pulse and mightier heart, 
Whose lightest beating shaketh e'en the coarse 



THE POET SEER. 85 

And threadbare vestment, that scarce shutteth in 
The thing so powerful from the open view : 
He walketh o'er the world it may be, in 
Some unfrequented and scarce trodden path, 
Or by the beaten wayside shelterless, 
At midnight and at noon ; or in the mist 
And gloom of early autumn's eve, upon 
The spongy marge of some wild river's flow, 
Where every footfall leaves its sunken trace, 
With 'kerchief grasped and wet with dew and tears ; 
The first in mercy dropped from Heaven's fond heart, 
The last wrung from his own in deep despair ! 
He beareth ever on his way, — perchance 
Unseen, — yet not unheard — a three-toned harp, 
Or mightier strung, with chords that angels tune, 
His only treasure, and world-scorned e'en this. 

He knoweth not what hue the monarch's robe 
Doth bear, and wotteth not the jewelled hand 
Of power, nor doth he scan the fustian frock 
Of him who plougheth up the netted sward. 
He looketh underneath these trifles all, 
And seeth secrets there no mortal else 
Discerns. He weigheth thoughts and feelings too, 
In justest scale, though hidden from the crowd ; 
And watcheth eye, and brow, and lip, and tone, 
And word, and breath, none other e'er would note. 



86 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

He counteth heart-throbs, feels the spirit's pulse, 
And knoweth of the beatings of the soul, 
And judgeth of the strength of all its chords, 
And by the slightest gesture frequent, of 
The slightest act, he testeth the whole man. 

What careth he, though all around him change 
And interchange, the mighty and the mean, 
Taking their places each upon the earth : 
He feels a power within no change can harm, 
A power to test the heart's false merchandise, 
Or coin, and turn the world's alloy to gold. 

And judge ye who is mightiest when they meet 
In salons of the earth, as meet they may, 
He the high questioner, and proud of skill ; 
In ermined vesture from his velvet couch 
Bowed to, or bowing ; or, this wanderer 
Of dewy night scarce recognised as man, 
This wayside wanderer unobserved, and lone, 
And fed by ravens oft — this Poet Seer ! 



87 



AN EVENING PBAYER. 

Father of all promise, hear: 
I have laid me down in fear ; 
Let thy angels gather near, 

And my couch attend ; 
Tenderest vigil may they keep, 
While my wearied senses sleep, 

And from harm defend. 

Feeble — I am feebler now; 
Drops of grief are on my brow, 
For the frequent broken vow, 

And my heart is faint ; 
Parent, let me plead with thee, 
My sad burthened soul to free 

From dark error's taint. 

Weary, wandering from the fold, 
Where the dark clouds gather cold, 
And the fierce winds sweep the wold, 



88 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Lone and lonely too ; 
Let me hear thy tender call, 
As the chilling night-dews fall, 

And thy presence view. 

Send the morning down in love, 
Radiant from thy throne above > 
And do thou let Judea's Dove 

In my bosom rest ; 
Grant me, though the storms abide, 
As the day and evening glide, 

Shelter on thy breast. 



89 



THE IRISH REPEAL BANQUET. 

GIVEN TO O'CONNELL. 

Sit at the banquet, Erin, 'tis for thee ; 
The hall is lighted, and the board is free : 
Put on thy fairest robes and to the feast, 
Thy Lover and thy Leader is the guest. 
Summon from all thy borders serf and lord, 
Hang out thy jewels, and let songs be heard : 
Well may'st thou revel there is joy for thee, 
A glorious light illumes thy destiny. 
Banquet and feast, and strengthen in thy soul 
The elements that tyranny control, 
Then go thou forth as in thy pristine state — 
Thou wast, thou canst be, nay, thou shalt be great. 

Shake off the yoke of bondage, men whose sires, 
Touched m Temora's halls the harp's soft wires, 
Or rose in might when Cathmor's lifted shield 
From every star-crowned boss a warning pealed ; 
Or, who in later times 'neath Armagh's towers, 
Inhaled the freedom breathed from classic bowers. 



90 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

My heart is full with sympathy for thee, 
Old Inisfail, longing to see thee free ; 
Nor trodden under foot and trampled down 
In unjust surveillance to England's crown ; 
And firm in faith is it, there yet shall rise, 
Upon thy soil, uptowering to the skies, 
A temple fair that shall thy soul elate, 
And to its choicest Freedom consecrate ! 

Yes, Erin, yes, thou shalt, and that full soon, 
Shine forth in glory as the sun at noon ; 
Shalt boast a name among the nations round, 
And take thy place, thyself as richly crowned! 
Yet, soon, around that silent nameless stone, 
That rises on thy bosom sad and lone, 
Thy sons shall throng, and with the wand of fame, 
Write boldly out thy noblest martyr's name, 
And freedom tell the story of his wrong, 
In epitaph, withheld religiously and long ! 7 

Forth to the banquet, then, it is for thee — 
The symbol of thy strength, thou shalt be free. 



91 



THE DILATORY PRIEST. 

Shrive the soul, shrive the soul, there is death in his 

eye, 
Delay not till morning illumine the sky : 
Let the spirit go forth, anointed, anealed, 
Lift his thoughts to his Saviour, the lost sinner's shield ! 

Shrive the soul, be in haste, it is struggling to go 

From its weariness here, its suffering, its woe ; 

Oh let it not pass on the Stygian stream, 

With nor prayer, with nor faith that can error redeem! 

Thou Priest of High God, anointed and sealed, 
Quick, forth to thy mission by Jesus revealed ; 
Shrive the soul, lest its hour of probation be past, 
And it stand to condemn thy delay at the last ! 

Shrive the soul, — hear that groan ! — enter speedily in, 
Offer pardon through Christ, free forgiveness of sin ; 
That look — how imploring, — dare not to delay, 
Till morning ride up on the beams of the day ! 



92 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

What answer wilt thou if this lamb of thy fold, 
Be found not at last on the throne of bright gold ? 
Thy robe of rich purple what will it avail ? 
Thy gem-spangled breastplate, if priest but to Baal ? 

Shrive the soul, it is parting, — the dew on his brow,- 
The haze o'er his* eye — they are gathering now! 
The pulse — it has ceased ! — cast mitre and rod, 
Thy ephod put off, — he has gone to his God ! 



93 



AN INVOCATION FOR SUFFERING GENIUS. 

Oh, Charity, where hast thou fled with heavenly-lustred 
wing, 

While on a low and sorrowing bed Genius lies suffer- 
ing ? 

Dost thou no cheering errand bear, to one by coldness 
slain, 

No blest relief from pitying souls, or coffers filled with 
gain ? 

Back, to yon halls all crimsoned round with web of 
Persia's loom — 

With quarried wealth of Egypt there, and Araby's 
perfume, 

To mirror beauty at her shrine, when in her loveliest 
guise, 

And sprinkle o'er with fragrant drops her costly sacri- 
fice ; 

Back, as she kneels on tufted flowers, with jewel- 
clasped hand, 

And bends her brow in meekness there, pressed with 
the sparkling band ; 



94 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Oh, to her heart the bitter grief with potency reveal, 
The anguish of a spirit crushed, stamped with a God- 
gift seal ! 

The deep despair of manhood's heart, when want her 

heavy hand 
Thrusts back upon his soul the thoughts, that, like a 

burning brand, 
Have lighted all the ether round, and kindled fire within, 
When coldness met the heart without, as kindness 

were a sin ! 

The deep despair the poet feels, when tuneless hangs 
his lyre, 

And feeble falls the master-hand that swept each hal- 
lowed wire, 

Whose music, though as angePs sweet, had ever failed 
to bring 

The murmer of its echo back, to soothe his sorrowing ! 

-A-sk but one jewel from her hand, one diamond from 

her brow, 
And it shall raise the suffering one from want's deep 

stain — from woe ; 
And he shall smite again his lyre, and strike its softest 

key, 
Until shall gush its heavenly strains in loftiest melody. 



AN INVOCATION FOR SUFFERING GENIUS. 95 

Ye tempt with gold the piper's song, and speed the 

loitering feet, 
Of harper at the festival, or minstrel in the street ; 
But he who bears a nobler lyre, with strings of seraph 

tone, 
Ye leave to pine in. actual want, unpitied and alone 

Ye listen to the heavenly notes, and call the music rare, 
And linger as it softly floats upon the midnight air, 
And wonder at the minstrel's power, and wonder at his 

song, 
And wonder at the master-hand that can the strains 

prolong ; 

Then turn unto your downy couch, nor heed that all 

abroad, 
No shelter for his head is found, no pillow but the sod ; 
Nor heed that on his cherished lyre the midnight dew 

descends 
In chilling drops, until at length its sweetest chords it 

rends. 

O, place, as favored ones of old, the ring upon his 

hand, 
The chain upon his neck who near to royalty should 

stand ; 
Nor let it be that in our midst genius shall pine and die, 
And the recording angel write its record in the sky ! 



96 



THE LUNAR BOW. 

The Night hath sought in her misty halls, 

To deck her dreamy brow ; 
For her soul doth weary of darksome walls 

And a palace so silent, I trow. 

So she setteth her locks with crescent and star, 
While the lightnings through them play, 

And her black tresses bindeth, near and far, 
With the fairest jewel of Day. 

O, see it now in its beautiful dyes, 

All cast about with stars ; 
As it leaneth up on the eastern skies, 

Where the thunders have ceased their jars. 

The dripping forests that cluster near, 

Seem bound in its gorgeous rim : 
While over them droppeth a silent tear, 

Prom the clouds that the azure swim. 



THE LUNAR BOW. 97 

And see it dipping its trailing hues 

In the waves of the mountain cup, 
And spanning the distant meadow, whose dews 

Its glories have gathered up. 

And it stoopeth down as its rays extend 

To drink from the shallow brook ; 
While all abroad, where its rich tints bend, 

The moon casts a gladsome look. 

All nature pauseth to give it place, 

The beautiful stranger here ; 
And standeth adoring far through space, 

With a glistening, joyous tear. 

O, the jealous Night decked in every gem, 

Stood envious at her gate, 
Till the Rainbow could her treasures enhem, 

And border her robe of state. 

And now she walketh abroad in pride, 

Or sitteth at her ease ; 
For she holdeth in her castle wide 

This more than the wealth of the seas. 



98 



THE MILLENNIAL SHIP.* 



Ho, ho! ho, ho! the Millennial ship, 

She skims the deep like a dove ; 
And lifts to the Sea King's briny lip 

The goblet of peace and love. 

Heave up, heave up yon glittering sands, 

Her fair sheets whiten the night ; 
And soon she will reach those golden lands, 

To herald the coming light. 

She is laden not with danger or death, 

And she spurns at mortal fear; 
For never a whiff of her quiet breath, 

Shall dampen the cheek with a tear. 

She rides like a thing of immortal hope, 
Whose freight the Great Architect owns, 

And whose cabin and deck in their proud, broad scope, 
Shall echo not sighs or groans. 



THE MILLENNIAL SHIP. 99 

She gladdens the sight as a holy sign, 

While her prow is gallant and strong, 
And her state-room and hold, as she cleaves the brine, 

Are melodious with grateful song. 

The chief of a navy all sublime, 

Ennobling to human skill, 
And meet to herald prophetic time, 

With her shadow of peace and good- will. 

Then heave ye up, yon glittering sands, 

She hath set her shrouds in light ; 
And soon she will reach those Ophir lands, 

To herald the breaking night. 

She hath manned her deck with a noble crew, 

And mighty as mighty can be, 
Is her captain known, who will guide her through, 

His own proud gift to the Sea ! 

She beareth tidings deep in her breast, 

A song for the age to sing ; 
While the choirs above aid the chorus blest, 

That mind o'er all matter is King. 

The Millennial Ship ! — see its white flag wave, 

The Advent line — ho, ho ! 
Ericsson, the Northman, all honor shall have, 

Wherever his argosies go. 



100 



THE MOUNTAIN MAIL-CARRIER. 



His beard was white, and his brow was brown, 
His palms they were furrowed and bare ; 

While the sun beat down on his bare, bare crown, 
And lustred his silver hair. 

His garments, they looked of the olden time, 

With the cut of the years gone by ; 
And his hat, the same he wore in his prime, 

That sheltered his keen gray eye. 

His horse, the younger of the two, 

Had fed on the daisies long ; 
And drank at the streams that gurgled through, 

Those mountain" passes strong. 

But he kept to his task all firmly shod, 

Nor wearily champed the bit ; 
While the old man slow in his footsteps trod ; 

(When he climbed a hill, — to wit.) 



THE MOUNTAIN MAIL-CARTUEE. 101 

Thus the two went slowly plodding on, 

The old man and his team ; 
' Till higher and hot looked forth the sun, 

With a yellow scorching gleam ! ' 

And thus as I mounted the hills with them, 

And gazed on their far-off bound, 
Deep-set with the hue of the emerald gem, 

And with quaint old forests crowned ; 

I asked of the old man's earlier day, 
When the style of his coat was new, 

And jetty locks on his smooth brow lay, 
And his heart was young as true. 

But few and brief were the words he gave, 
As notes from a strained harp wrung; 

Or, as splinters ride on the tossing wave, 
From the shattered strong mast flung. 

But methought the long days of his youth, 
When he roamed through those forests wild, 

Cast their shadow back o'er his heart in ruth, 
With the yearnings of a child. 

For many a weakness bendeth down 

The soul of the strong and free ; 
And many a wound long callous grown, 

Burdeneth e'en to eternity. 



102 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

And many a memory sad as soft, 
That tells of the young heart's strife, 

Calls bitter streams to its stern paths oft, — 
The marahs of our life. 

Old man, thou hast stirred the dreams of years, 

Long hidden, deep, deep within, 
My own faint soul, till wandering tears 

The wildering visions win. 

Thy journey is over the verdant hills, 

That lead the traveller home, 
To the spot of his birth by leaping rills, 

Though with chastened heart he come. 

But thy heart hath a romance secretly kept, 

And piously cherished, I ween ; 
That long in thy bosom hath painfully slept, 

And the wisdom of none could glean. 

Well, be it so ; — when we meet again, 

Thou wilt not be driving thy team ; 
And thy heart's strange hoard, thy life's whole gain, 

An unopened treasure seem. 

So fair befall thee, my transient friend, - 

Be no slight on thy destiny; 
My blessings go with thee to the end, — 

Fair befall thy team and thee. 



103 



'THE LONE OAK' OF SACRAMENTO. 9 

Lonely and sad thou standest there, 
With thy brave old arms to the tempest bare ; 
Thou chief of a forest long passed away, 
As if pausing thyself over man's decay. 

What changes have swept o'er the human race, 
Since thou hast there pictured the mighty space ; 
Castilians thy proud ' Ei Dorado ' sought, 
That rapt as a vision Pizarro's thought ; 

Or when Cortez, with his fierce, desperate band, 
By Tlascala's walls raised the treacherous hand, 
Thou stood'st sentry, perchance, on that far-spreading 

plain, 
As they rang back the shout, ( Montezuma is slain ! ■ 

Still seem'st thou a monarch in laurelled pride, 
Yet leafy and green by that wandering tide, 
Where manhood bends in his strength and bloom, 
For the dust that shall but build his tomb ! 



104 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

There, rising apart on the prairied plain, 
Where the bird of night holds her solemn reign, 
Far out, and shadowing the blue sky clear, 
Thou markest a spot to the Emigrant dear. 

Through thy realm once was heard but the wolf's 

wild scream, 
As fiercely it broke on the red man's dream ; 
While the raven there poured her desolate wail, 
From the bending reeds o'er his stealthy trail. 

There the startled hare and the deer kept time 
With their bounding feet to the water's chime, 
And the stars looked down, through that silence old, 
On but insect ' miners' in sands of gold. 

Those warrior tribes all have passed away, 
Like the faint white mist of a summer's day ; 
And a fresher band, whom no strifes engage, 
There rest in the folds of their pilgrimage. 

In fancy I follow those wanderers o'er 
Their tearful track on Nevada's wild shore, 
Where one by one their fond treasures they left, 
Till at length for the last thy smooth sward they cleft. 



C THE LONE OAK' OF SACRAMENTO. 105 

Since that consecration, thick hillocks have grown 
Round thy old mossy trunk unmarked by the stone ; 
Unguarded, alas ! by affection's fond eyes, 
And watered alone by the dew of the skies ! 

Yet many a yearning heart afar, 

In desolate homes toward the northern star, 

Looks tearful forth on the evening haze, 

For the loved who sleep where thy shadow plays ! 

They crossed the threshold of love and bliss, 
With the smile of hope and the tender kiss, 
Yet the pilgrim burthen their shoulders bore, 
They cast in thy shade — and return no more ! 

Companions in toil scooped their place of rest, 
And folded the blanket across their breast, 
Then lifting the clods with a broken prayer, 
They stifled the tear, and left them there. 

Still the ' Gold King' proudly decks his hall 
From the glittering mine, and laughs at the pall ; 
And beckons the youth from his mother's side, 
To that fearful clime where his sire hath died ! 

Thus all lands have bartered their sons for his dross, 
The land of the crescent — the land of the cross ; 
And given strong men to thy solemn care — 
E'en New England's bravest and boldest are there ! 



106 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Yet long flourish there in thy greenness free, 
A cherished landmark art thou, old tree ; 
As lifting thyself toward the glorious sky, 
Thou breakest sad on the wanderer's eye. 

Though quenched are the Indian's council fires, 
And his war trail lost 'neath thy leafy spires, 
Thou crownest a landscape still lovely and fair, 
And hallowed forever by tear and by prayer ! 



107 



A DREAM AT PARTING. 



I pressed a hand at parting, 

And o'er my spirit came 
The rapture of my early love — 

A wild and wildering flame. 

I pressed a hand at parting, 

And flashing eyes met mine, — 

'T was as the lightning's glare around 
A consecrated shrine. 

I turned my thoughts within me, — 
And to mine own were prest 

Lips icy cold, and pallid, 

Whose smile no bosom blest. 

I thought me of the weary, 

In charnel-houses laid, 
Of whom the gentle ones of earth 

Were evermore afraid ! 



108 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

I thought me of night's spectres, 
That dwell in castle towers — 

Whose shadows haunt old crumbling walls, 
And fright the midnight hours ! 

I thought me of the fettered, 

In prison walls who dwell ; 
Unloved — unsympathized — alone — 

Or in the mad-house cell ! 

And more — I thought me thrilling, 

Of Polus grasping wild 
The fresh-urned ashes of his dead, — 

Of iEneas beguiled ! — 

Of Orpheus dismembered, 
And chanting 'neath the wave 

As swept the dark iEgean flood, 
His Eurydice to save ! 

For, as my eye I lifted, 

There looked imploring still, 

Those fiery orbs, impassioned — wild, 
Unyielding to my will. 

And then a prayer I uttered, 

And crossed my throbbing breast : — 

6 God look upon thy agony, 
And give thy spirit rest. 



A DREAM AT PARTING. 109 

' But with thy hand's warm pressure, 

And thy forsaken look, 
Thy soul so sad and earnest, 

Came thoughts I could not brook. 

c A memory ever-gushing 

From founts within, unseen, 
Leaped forth, as mighty torrents break 

O'er meadows fresh and green. 

'A memory dark and fearful, 

Of hopes that early fled — 
A vivid dream of vanished bliss 

That tarrieth with the dead ! 

c My soul met thine with passion, 

For thou didst to me seem 
The vision of that buried love, — 

A startling, glowing dream ! 

4 My soul met thine in pity, 

For in thy being seemed 
The essence of revolting things, 

Where never kindness beamed. 

' But go, I would not worship ; 

Pity alone I give ; 
God look upon thy anguished heart— 

Mine for the dead doth live ! ' 



110 



THE AGED INEBRIATE. 



Oh why, old man, is thy brow so red, 

And why are thy locks so gray ? 
Say, why dost thou beg for a morsel of bread, 

And wander the livelong day ? 

And where, old man, is the bride of thy youth, 
Where the sons of thy manhood, say? 

Why gather they thick those clouds of ruth, 
To darken thy setting day ? 

And why do men shut from thee door and gate, 

And curse thee on thy way ; 
Or why dare it not on thy footsteps wait 

For fear of thee, childhood gay ? 

And why, old man, dost thou make thy bed, 
Long, long, e'er the close of day, 

Where the beasts of earth do wallow and tread, 
Nor awaken at evening gray ? 



THE AGED INEBRIATE. Ill 

And why are the powers of thy genius dull, 

And why doth" thy memory stray ? 
And what so oft doth thy conscience lull 

When wide from Heaven thy way ? 

Where, too, are the honors of thy youth, 
Where, where old man, canst thou say ? 

Alas, alas, for thy manhood's truth, 
And the glory of that bright day ! 

Ah, thou hast drunk of the poison cup — 

Nay, drained it from day to day ; 
While they who urged thee to take it up, 

Now turn in disgust away . 

And they who gave it o'erbrimmed to thee 

For thy gold and silver pay ; 
They were heartless — what should their pity be ? — 

And they walk in their own dark way. 

And she, old man, of thy youth the light, 

The star of thine early day ; 
No longer she waiteth thy call at night, 

And moumeth for thy delay. 

Thy broken vow, thy neglect and wrong, 

Have grieved her spirit away ; 
Rut joy now attuneth the notes of her song, 

Wh.ile wearily thou dost stray. 



112 VOICES OF THE PAST. 



Oh, thou hast drunk of a poison deep, 

And the sons of thy better day, 
They turn from thy path in disgust and weep, 

And then for thy ransom pray. 

Thus then no pillow hast thou for thy head, 

For thy heart no friend or stay ; 
And few at thy need their board will spread, — 

Poor man ! ah ! well-a-way ! 

Long too hath the star of thine honor been dim, 

Long faded thy wreath of bay, 
For they who drink at the goblet's brim, 

In vain crowns of glory essay. 

Repenteth it thee that thou hast cast 

Thy treasures of mind away ? 
That thy manhood and youth inglorious have past, 

And would'st thou have sympathy, say ? 

There 's a remedy then, old man, for thee, 

Go haste where the fountains play ; 
And pledge thy soul in their element free, 

Haste thee there, make no delay. 



113 



THE WANDERER. 



A wanderer near her native home, 

Stood with a moistened eye, 
And words throbbed from her heart, as passed 

Familiar faces by. 

4 Years on my brow, what have ye done, 

And on my soul what blot ; 
That thus I stand amid mine own, 

And yet they know me not ? 

' Sorrow and woe, what have ye done, 
That where the bright stars shone, 

Above my childhood and my youth, 
I walk a stranger lone ? 

6 On my changed visage do they look, 

And talk of life's rough storm ; 
And gaze into my sunken eye, 

And on my faded form ; 



114 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

' And then they question of themselves, 
(Playmates were they of yore,) 

What stranger passeth to their gaze, 
With looks my father wore.' 

'And can it be,' amazed they ask, 

And to each other turn, 
' And can it be the merry one, 

Whose farewell we did mourn ; 

; The loveliest playmate of our youth, 

The gayest of our throng ? 
How hath life's under-current burst, 

And swept its way along ! 

( How is the green and grassy turf, 

With ruins all bespread ; 
And e'en with wrecks of human things, 

And ashes of the dead ! 

'The stately oak lies prostrate there, 
The eye and brow both tell ; 

And blooming shrub and budding flower 
Crushed in the mighty swell. 

4 And precious clay from charnel depths, 
With rocks and pebbles rare ; 

While flood- washed, withering underneath, 
Lies all the meadow fair ! ' 



THE WANDERER. 115 

c Ah, it is true, my early friends, 

That scarcely do I seem 
The happy loved one that ye knew, 

Bathed in a summer dream. 

c My being hath strange life obtained, 

As on the rock, the moss ; 
The breaking flood hath washed my breast — 

Yet planted there the cross ! 

1 And it hath left upon the heart, 

Fresh rooting violet stems ; 
And drifted with the heaps of sand, 

Rich, many-colored gems. 

c Ye see me changed all fearfully, 

The outward form doth tell ; 
But a faint pilgrim, I have drunk, 

From Salem's holy well. 

6 And though with chastened soul I stand, 

I would not now return 
To the far past — yet strangely here, 

Doth my lone bosom yearn. 

c Ye see me changed — but look again, 

How briefly days shall show, 
(And briefer for the change ye mark, 

Upon my cheek and brow; ) 



116 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

6 And ye shall see a void behind, 

And on before the bier ; 
And a glad, imburthened spirit winged, 

Cleaving the upper sphere ! ' 



117 



THE BAILIFF'S VISIT. 



Oh ! take not that — that chair — my mother's shrine, 
O'er which her gray locks streamed when life was 
spent ; 

Where infancy she rocked — my brother's — mine, 
Ere her lithe beauteous form by grief was bent. 

That desk — it was my father's — through long years 

He sat beside it in his manhood's day, 
And on it leaned his brow when marked by tears, 

For trusts it held that ruined — take not that away. 

This old familiar table - — it was mine, 

E'er since they gathered round it full of glee, 

One bridal morn, a joyous household line, 
Scattered no more to meet ! — leave that to me. 

That oaken crib — it has no tenant now — 

Across its tiny pillow careless thrown, 
With feet cast up where should repose the brow, 

Moist with its curling locks, no form we own. 



118 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

A useless thing — but O ! remove it not ; 

An angel boy there in the daytime sat, 
And nightly tossed its drapery on that spot 

Where now it stands, — I cannot part with that. 

And these old volumes, stained as with fresh tears, 
And worn by frequent use in careful hands, 

Where 'neath a tissue leaf, a face appears 
That now lends lustre to yon angel bands ; 

Here are choice pages, folded down to lure, 

(They were the gift of one — no matter who — ) 

And pressed flowers pinned to mark each passage sure, 
That struck a double note — ye cannot want these, too ! 

A jewel-mounted sword — more would ye know ? 

Its price was rubles when the tyrant's heel 
Smote on the Christian's neck, and forced the blow 

That staggered kings, and made the despot kneel ! 

My grandsire's sword, he girded to his thigh, 

When forth he went from his last brief " amen," 

Upon the battle's serried field to die ! 
Ye want it not — O, hang it back again. 

Here is a casket filled with precious gems, 
Ancient and new — the jewels of my youth ; 

This a bright rim of amethyst enhems, 

And that, a jet, inscribed with words of ruth. 



THE BAILIFF'S VISIT. 119 

This has a love-knot, that a lock of hair, 
That shaded once a maiden's neck of snow ; 

And each some tender memory doth bear 
Of scenes and loves, and hopes of long ago. 

Here is a pearl set in a bridal ring, 

(I do not wear it now — 'tis sacred there,) 

And here a rosary whose decades fling 
A holy incense at the hour of prayer ! 

Ye would not take these, though I cast the shrine 
Down at your feet ! — ye are no murderers here ; 

Ye do not want the crimson drops — the brine — 
That flood the heart — that gushes in the tear ! 

There is a picture cast in richest dyes, 

'Tis Rembrandt's own — (I never told it all — 

Its subject strange — its history from those skies, 
It shades — since there it hung upon the wall.) 

But it was drawn from life, and tells a tale 
That hath on earth full many a parallel ; 

Werter, and Faust, and Tasso — histories stale 
But true, and many another one as well. 

Yet whence it came to deck my home, or why, 

I even falter now to make it known — 
It hath another shadow — pass it by, 

O, pass it by, and leave it there alone. 



120 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Thus all around me dear mementoes are, 

That bind my spirit to the tender past ; 
If ye must take them, let me bend in prayer, 

To strengthen my weak heart, before the iconoclast. 

Ye pause, to dash the tear-drops gathering, free : — 
The proud humanities leap up for sway — 

Now am I stronger in my strength than ye, 

Pass on with your stern claims — take all away ! 



121 



SATURDAY NIGHT. 



Homeward ! homeward ! from your toil, 

Weary with the week's employ, 
Ye who till the fertile soil, 

Or whose commerce yieldeth joy. 
Homeward ! homeward ! ye who smite 

On the anvil glowing steel ; 
Ye who link to link unite, 

Of the chains the bondmen feel. 

Ye who raise the glittering spire, 

Ye who build the storied dome ; 
Ye who point the marble higher 

Where luxury shall find a home. 
Ye who screw and lever ply, 

Homeward from your toilsome task, 
For, provided from on high, 

Day of rest ye need not ask. 



122 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Stifled by the narrow wall, 

Worn and pallid as with grief, 
Whom notes and dull accounts enthrall, 

Fold the ledger, seek relief. 
All who search at learning's fount — 

Ye, yourselves, vain glory's spoil — 
Pluming thus your wings to mount, 

O'er the earth's hard manual toil ; 

Leave the problem, leave the chart, 

Weary not in hidden ways ; 
Turns the merchant from the mart, 

Turn ye while the eve delays. 
Homeward, homeward, each and all — 

Leave the pictured canvas there, 
Pictures lovelier grace your hall, 

For the spirit makes them fair. 

But as ye pass the threshold stone, 

And fond ones gather round the knee 3 
Urging closer one by one, 

Parent, — brother, — each to see ; 
View ye there no vacant seat, 

There has death no octave hushed, 
Since the Sabbath rest to greet, 

Last your footsteps homeward rushed ? 



SATURDAY NIGHT. 123 

Mark ye not the idle toy, 

By the useless wardrobe laid, 
Of one ' whose life was light and joy,' 

And who round your hearthstone played ? 
Is there not a chill, a gloom, 

Mid these merry greetings, say ? 
Is there not a hallowed room 

Where the loved one passed away ? 

Turn ye not from these away 

To that sacred cherished spot, 
Where the spirit with its clay 

Wrestled, struggled, and was not ! 
Dies not in the breast the heart, 

With the deep unlanguaged grief, 
That earth's broken ties impart, 

All too bitter for relief? 

Feel ye not a void behind 

All your seeming joyousness ? 
A broken spirit none can bind — 

Humbly then your Father bless. 
Kneel upon the marble there, 

Ere your feet have further trod ; 
And in fervent grateful prayer, 

Long and lowly thank your God ! 



124 



THE WIDOWED HEART. 

FOR MRS. E. A. G. 

A holy, holy shrine, 

And yet no idol there ! 
What hand had thus presumed to take 

From out that temple fair, 
Its precious, blest divinity, 

Of worship rare ? 

No tempest swept the plain, 
No earthquake rent the sward, 

Stern wrestling with the secret strength, 
The mighty mountains hoard ; 

Bringing that idol from its throne, 

So deep adored ! 

No midnight robber turned 

That sacred temple's key, 
Or dared its hallowed altar fire — 

Flaming eternally — 
To take with sacrilegious hand 

Its god away ! 



THE WIDOWED HEART. 125 

And yet from out that shrine 

Of woman's changeless love — 
Worthy the angel troops that dwell 

In starry homes above — 
A power its idol in his strength 

Had dared to move ! 

The morning dawneth up, 

And yet no joyous hymn 
Stirreth the fragrant atmosphere 

Around that temple dim, 
In heavenly strains, as from the lyres 
Of seraphim ! 

But floats a ceaseless wail 

Above its gorgeous gate, 
Wandering far up its mournful aisles, 

Where waning lamps still wait, 
Shimmering along the marbled floor, 
Now desolate. 

The worshipper goes in, 

But ever to her tread 
Echoes the dismal vaulted roof, 

Where once a glory spread ; 
And whisperings run along its walls 

As of the dead ! 



126 VOICES OF THE PAST. 

Oh, thou destroyer, Death ! 

There is no power like thine, 
To wither buds of earthly joy, 

Or desolate a shrine — 
Or sweep the swelling clusters down 

From the full vine ! 

The widow poureth tears, 

Yet who may tell her woe, 
As through long, starless nights of grief 

Those brimming fountains flow ; 
Baptizing with the bitter drops 

Her orphan's brow ! 

But thou, lone widowed one, 
Whose idol God hath claimed, 

Though desolate thy woman's heart, 
Where love's pure altar flamed — 

Soul-service deep as mortal lip 

Hath ever named ; 

Though down thy lonely path 
No wayside blossoms spring, 

And to thine orphan's curling locks 
Cold dews of midnight cling ; 

Yet prophet-food the birds of heaven 

Shall to thee bring. 



THE WIDOWED HEART. 127 

And thou may'st hear a chant 

From out that loftier shrine, 
Where the blest image is removed, 

Thy heart had deemed divine — 
Answering, in never-dying strains, 

That love of thine. 

For spirits vigils keep 

Around the loved on earth, 
Guarding through dark and dreary ways, 

And by the lonely hearth, 
In watchings whose commission hath 

With God its birth. 

Thus he, of virtue rare, 

On earth thy hope and guide, 
(Thy happiness his latest care,) 

Shall walk thy path beside — 
Till reunited evermore, 

His spirit- bride. 



128 



A SAD HEART'S REFLECTION. 



I am become a withered leaf, 
Driven by the winds that rise ; 

To mountain caves where with decay, 
The last year's verdure lies. 

Swept from the branch ere fully spread 

Its living fibres bleed ; 
And leave upon it mingled stains, — 

Words that the angels read. 

Perchance that where it wastes to earth, 
They'll bid some blossom spring 

Of beauty rare — unseen where man 
Treads the wide opening. 

And some w 7 ell learned in curious lore, 

May take it to his bower ; 
And thus the wasted loving heart, 

Shall wake in that sweet flower. 



|$naMgt0 itnm %\U. 



I name one of my house, sole Son and heir, 

Before these pages of my Life's worn book ; 
Whose being gladdens mine, whose life a prayer 

Granted in love, with leaping heart I took : 
As one who tells his story o'er and o'er, 

To listening ears that never shut or tire, 
Till thus its utterance gathers more and more 

Of living strength, and wakes his being's fire; 
So here I give up to his cherished name, 
These oft repeated thoughts, a living guardian flame. 



PROVERBS. 



Long since in the flower-bordered Nazareth, 
There rose a king of meek and lowly heart, 
Yet kingly ; and the lessons that he taught, 
Were as his manhood perfect and divine. 
Yet men have thrust them back, and wrested oft 
Their power, essaying to make might the right, 
And hiding the dim lamp of justice, where 
Nor Jew nor Gentile should its light perceive ; 
And have, as in the confidence of Heaven, 
Gone each his chosen way, calling upon 
His God, in violence of His truth and name. 

Not these do I rebuke in numbers free, 
But charge thee here, my son, do thou bear up 
Thy manhood loftily, for 't is the gift 
Of God ; and in disgracing that, his name 
Thou wilt insult. 



134 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

Though in thy life-bud now 
And beardless, yet when it shall come, take up 
Its burthens as a man, with might and strength, 
Not punily, as the base-born child untaught 
Man's duty, and God's lessons all. 






Shame not 
Thy father's honor or thy mother's heart ; 
All things questioning stand thou upon the right, 
Nor swerve from that, though swords were glancing all 
Thy Eden round, or though thou starve for bread. 

The antique for its long antiquity 
Despise thou not ; that stone in the proud wall 
Of old Jerusalem, more nicely matched, 
Than now it matches in the bastion high 
Of modern Rome. 

But yet there be who cling 
Tenaciously and error-like to creeds, 
And olden forms and codes, despising all 
That modern sophists preach ; and knowing not 
To modify and sift ; ' What do,' say they, 
c The fathers, so may we ; and earliest truths 
The latest should remain unchanged in all ; 
The sire's example e'er should guide the son.' 



PROVERBS. 135 

Thy father robbed, thy mother murderess known, 
Should'st thou both rob and murder too ? 

Dare to be poor if poverty shall come 
By righteous means, so shall thy heart be rich. 
Meekly confess thy faults ; the coward he, 
Who dares not this, not he who doth refuse 
To bind his armor for unrighteous war. 

Despise all cover for a folly — fault ; 
And be not shackled by a golden gift, 
As thou hast seen now in thy youth's pure sig]it 
Manhood disgraced by base servility and fear ; 
Spurn thou all title, dignity, command, 
Where thou may'st not be free to be and seem 
An honest man ; to spread thy motives out, 
As in the presence of the living God. 
Not thus commissioned, deem thou honors, all, 
But insults to thy manhood and thy name, 
And cast them back as vile. 

Cringe not before 
The lie though it be set on chartered lips ; 
But dare to charge it back and show thy proof, 
Not sinfully, but as thou art a man, 
Of equal stature, equal birthright too, 
Who would not barter for a pottage meal, 
His nobler manhood's claim. 



136 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. • 

Humility ! 
Let it not grind thee to the dust, 
Or bend thy shoulders to a brutish yoke ; 
Chains should be forged for brutes and not for man. 

With forbearance bear the wrong, but call it wrong, 
Though thou dost not resent or give return ; 
Forgiveness cannot make it right here or in heaven ; 
And let thy footsteps hasten from his door, 
Who would insult and wrong again; 'tis safe 
To deem him thus unworthy of thy heart. 
Thou art not called to love the sinner's sin, 
Or give thy confidence and friendship free 
To the oppressor and unjust, though kin. 

Unking not e'er thy brother in thy heart, 
Strive rather to be brother to a king ; 
Envy doth ever smear and soil itself 
And is companion of the mean. 

If called 
To serve, serve thou as servant, not the lord ; 
There is a nobleness in serving well. 
And dignity of that state consists, as most 
In all, in aiming at its highest mark, 
And not one whit beyond. An adage old, 
' The greatest in thy sphere,' nor covet more. 



9 PROVERBS. 137 

Who would pull down the mountain to his grade 
Could never reach its towering top, — 
Mark this ; 'tis but the imbecile, the weak, 
The mean, who level thus ; be thou content. 

Nobility in servitude as in 
Command the prone republican forgets, 
The sin Columbia shall one day confess, 
Was at the base of her aggression — wrong. 
Her l free and equal \ on her parchment scroll, 
Wrested to slavery and base control. 
But servitude and slavery are not kin, 
Reward hath ne'er a despot for its lard. 

If sceptred with command, upon the ground 
Let dignity and meekness braid for thee 
Thy chaplet, and wait thou for a mighty hand 
To place it on thy brow, thy manhood's crown. 

Attempt ne'er to bestar thyself, for such 
A decoration hath a tinsel show, 
That blackens in the sunlight to disgrace. 

In all thou dost, let conscience have the rule, 
Touched with a living, burning coal as from 
God's altar brought, by missioned angel hands ; 
So shall thy manhood never shame thy trust, 
Or Heaven's all perfect name madly insult. 



138 



VIGILS. 



One day of all the year I keep 

From the gay world apart ; 
While mournful ' Aves ' ceaseless sweep 

The chambers of my heart. 

It is not in the winter time, 

When snow hath paled the earth ; 

And flowers have drooped beneath the rime 
That gathers to the hearth. 

It is not when the autumn drifts 

The withered leaves along ; 
And wind on forest harps, uplifts 

Its deep-toned funeral song. 

Nor is it when the burthened year, 

Beneath a pall-like sky, 
With anthems swelling on the ear, 

Slow goeth forth to die. 



VIGILS. 139 

But 'tis amid the summer's balm, 
While dew-drops crown the flowers ; 

And laughing morn and sunset calm, 
To joy lead up the hours. 

'T is when the juicy vine hangs forth, 

Its clusters to the sun ; 
And all of beauty tints the earth, 

And life and bliss are one. 

Then from the festive world I keep 

One day alone — apart ; 
And shut, as to a whisper deep, 

The windows of my heart. 

While out from its hushed vesper aisles, 

A mournful requiem breaks ; 
And as from holy rituals, whiles, 

A solemn service wakes. 

Just so as on a long gone day, 

Where one in boyhood slept, 
While changeless pallor o'er him lay, 

And a dread dullness crept ; 

A dirge swept o'er me drearily, 

My heart a service said ; 
And deeper than the world could see, 

Made mourning for its dead. 



140 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

I see, as then, the coffin set, 
The pall above it thrown ; 

And, just as then, my cheeks are wet 
With sorrow and with moan. 

For 't is the day — the very day — 
The month amid the year, 

When from my heart they bore away, 
A flower-strewn, burthened bier ! 

And as the dark hours wandered there, 
The night airs came in gloom, 

Through open casements, to a bare, 
A changed and silent room ! 



141 



ONE THOUSANDTH IMITATION OF AN OLD SONG. 



It is not many a year, John, 

Since you and I were wed ; 
But dark and dreary ways, John, 

We both have had to tread ; 
And many a rising cloud, John, 

No bigger than your hand, 
Hath spread across our Shinah path, 

And raised the drifting sand. 

Rude bog and fen we've clambered o'er, 

And crossed swift turbid streams^ 
But laid us down as quietly, 

From weariness to dreams. 
No mountain rose above our path, 

Whose top we did not reach ; 
And ever found that close beyond 

A fertile vale did stretch. 



142 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

We've had both sun and shade, John, 

Bright morns and gusts of sleet, 
And lightnings round our heads, John, 

And thunders at our feet. 
But little have we cared, John, 

For rain or wind or weather, 
For higher thoughts employed our minds, 

As we walked on together. 



And little have we noted down 

The roughness of the way ; 
Or whether fair or foul at length, 

Took up the toilsome day. 
Choice fragrant shrubs and spicy plants 

Have sprung without our care ; 
And put forth precious buds around 

Us, beautiful as rare. 



I've thought full many a time, John, 

That we had lost our way ; 
Yet you would see the rainbow, John, 

Spanning the cloud alway ; 
But never did the darkness, John, 

Seem half so dreary all, 
As when we closed the coffin-lid, 

And o'er it spread the pall ! 



IMITATION OF AN OLD SONG. 143 

And though I knew the night within 

Would break to heaven's fair light, 
And all exchanged for seraph wings 

Would be the shroud of white ; 
Yet evermore to clasp my dead, 

Hath my fond spirit yearned ; 
And all my nightly dreams have been 

Of kisses unreturned ! 



I've wondered all along, John, 

If love were ever true ; 
And I should sure have doubted, John, 

Had it not been for you. 
For many a sire I've seen, John, 

At eve not ' homeward bound,' 
As wandering and benighted oft, 

The honey-bee is found. 

Though creeping reptiles we have met, 

Sly slinking from oar sight, 
With scales, and slime, and forked tongues, 

Along our path by night ; 
Yet never did the filthy things 

Our vigorous footsteps bind ; 
For quick they fled when once they saw 

God's image was behind. 



144 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

And I have swept my lyre, John, 

Our darkest way along, 
Nor can it be a wonder, John, 

For c life is but a song.' 
And deep I've looked within it, John, 

And I have looked above ; 
Thus I am full of longings true, 

For yonder world of love. 

But when the midnight stars shall set, 

That flicker o'er our way, 
We shall in the bright east discern 

The glimmering of day. 
With clasped hand and clasped heart, 

And orbs turned toward the sky, 
Thus still our journey we will keep, 

For there its end doth lie. 



145 



WAMESIT COTTAGE.™ 



Oh, call me not out from my cottage home, 
The shade of my life's bright noon, 
'T is a humble spot, 
That the proud crave not, 
Where the blithsome and gay would not come, — 

Then let me not leave it soon. 
Here winter is solemn — and lovely as rude, 
And I feel it seclusion — not thrall ; 
Now gentle and mild, 
Now fearful and wild, 
Bedecking with gems, sere leaf and closed bud, 

And hemming me in, with a jewelled wall. 
Here the spring comes tripping with dewy foot, 
As she hears the pee-bird's first call ; 
With the bud in its fold, 
Tinted blue, pink, and gold ; 
While shivers on upland the scarce reddening shoot, 
And the rock-sheltered violet small. 
10 



146 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

Here the zephyrs sport with the incense of flowers, 
As they leap from the fresh wave's foam — 
From the fetid breath, 
The miasma of death, 
That o'er the dense city lowers, — 

Unburthened and free they come. 
They waft not here the unwelcome hum 
Of the world, as it chaffers for gold ; 
Or dust from the feet, 
Of the vain crowd that meet, 
Nor with its false shout do they come, 

Or heartless huzzas with homage that's cold. 
Here green leaves are fanned by the wing of the bird 
That builds where the Bignon climbs, 
And sweet is her song, 
Its gay trumpets among, 
While all day long are the soft wares heard, 
As they beat round deserted shrines ! 

Shrines dear to me as the warrior chief, 
When his girdle close he drew, 
And kindled his fire, 
O'er the bones of his sire, 
And gazed a brief moment in grief, 
Then far through the forest flew. 
Beside them he sate full many a day, — 
The rocks in his Ganges as mine ; 



WAMESIT COTTAGE. 147 

Its wave -falls in pride 
Full oft did he ride, 
Ere darkness closed over his wild forest way, 

Or the trail of his star's sad decline. 
Here the raven sits with his solemn throng, 
On the bough of some blasted oak, 

Hushed — mournful — and still — 
Or one sad note they trill ; 
Then flap the clear air with their pinions strong, 
As beating their strange music's stroke ! 

And I have seen the gray eagle here, 
A wanderer from his clime : 

Thrilled and rapt was my soul, 
As a perch near he stole, 
Thus seeming to hail this a kindred sphere, 

So quiet — so solemn — sublime. 
Birth-songs still linger these shades among, 
That lifted, with hope, love and joy, 
The darkness that crept, 
Round the couch where I slept, 
As a bow of bright promise athwart it was flung, 

And clung to my bosom, my new-born, my boy. 
The vine at the threshold its soft shadow threw, 
O'er that babe to my heart close prest, 
As he leaped with delight, 
For the dew-drops bright, 



148 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

That glittered and jewelled its green arbor through — 
That babe now in heaven so blest. 

The breath of my dead — thus hallows it all, 
Ere they left me in anguish and tear ; 
Their love tones yet sound, 
Its rude walls around, 
On evening's hushed air, still reverberates their call, 

And their sacred dust is near. 
Oh, this is the home for a weary one, 
Whom earth's false splendor charms not ; 
Who can people thought 
With life-forms, brought 
From ideal worlds all his own, 

Making holy, as cheerful, the loneliest spot. 

I have grown to be like it, in heart and in mind, 

Breathing in all its majesty free ; 

As the exile becomes, 

In the desert he roams, 

Proud, tameless, and wild as its wind, 

Or the ocean-bird's wing bears the hue of the sea. 

Its wildness and grandeur have wrought in my soul, 
Till my spirit hath loftiness strange ; 
Till the rock and the stream, 
Have a beauty I deem 
More sacred and lovely than all, 

The heart that beguiles in proud graith or grange. 



WAMESIT COTTAGE. 149 

I have worshipped amid its green solitude, 
And my heart to its holiness clings ; 
Where I wander afar, 
Shall I watch its pale star, 
And bend me before it, though rude 
And deserted the shadow it flings. 
Then call me not out from my cottage home, 
To the blaze of the city and hall, — 
'Tis little I crave — 
Green forest and wave, 
Flower and shrub, where the birds fearless come, 
The oak and the vine and moss-covered wall. 



150 



THE LADY IN AT TICKNOR'S ; 

OR, THE HISTORY OF A DIAMOND. 

As I walked in at Ticknor's, 

One merry afternoon, 
With bosom strangely welling up, 

And heart all out of tune, 
One with an aspect foreign, 

(You'd have seen her mid a score, 
For foreign was her beauty too,) 

Stood pausing at the door. 

She looked upon me mournfully, 

Yet a pure diamond's ray 
Flashed wealth from oat the graceful folds, 

That on her bosom lay. 
And still methought beside it, 

A fairer radiance spread, 
From a bright dew-drop sparkling there, 

That down her cheek had sped. 



THE LADY IN AT TICKNOR's. 151 

I know not what, but something 

As her soft glance met mine, 
Made me my trembling hand extend, 

Which she did not decline. 
1 Laoy,' said she, c I think me 

That we have met before ; 
Nor greet we for the first time here, 

At this rich merchant's door.' 

c But I am here a mourner 

Over a perished flower ; 
And come some words of cheer to seek, 

In this dark trial hour. 
I mind me that young Stoddard 

Soft sorrow lays hath sung ; 
That in sweet heavenly consonance 

Have to my bosom clung. 

' ' And I would fain obtain them, 

(Though I have sought in vain,) 
For they whose hearts are touched like mine 

May sympathize its pain. 
And now I look upon thee 

And on thy pallid face, 
A sorrow like unto my own 

Deep buried there I trace ! 



152 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

c Thou too hast known of farewells 

Whose echoes never cease ; 
Of lingering looks and tender tones 

All past — and is it peace ? ' 
Long paused we there together, 

That stranger from the Rhine 
And I, — while fast her tears did flow, 

And faster still did mine. 

I placed the well sought volume 

In her white jewelled hand, 
Whose tender, heart-struck melodies 

Had been a spirit wand. 
And as its dainty numbers 

Again fell on her ear, 
I wondered if that Poet dreamed 

Of angels hovering near. 

(Still there I placed another, 

In crimson velvet bound ; 
And Ophir clasped, whose ashes heal 

The martyr's deepest wound.) 
It needs not that I tell it, 

How sudden friendships grow ; 
Or the bland look of sadness there, 

As thus I turned to go, 



THE LADY IN AT TICKNOIt's. 153 

1 Pray take this diamond,' said she, 

Bringing it from her breast, 
6 And let it ever for my sake 
Upon thy bosom rest. 
Oh, take it here, I pray thee, 

For my home is o'er the sea, 
And I would leave some token true, 
Of my regard with thee. 

; And when on the far Rhine shore, 

My Alpine home I tread, 
And think on the blest land that holds 

My only, precious dead, 
I '11 mind me of the stranger, 

Whose sympathy came o'er 
A stricken mourner's bleeding heart, 

Upon that foreign shore. 

' And let one memory soften 

My sorrow as I weep, 
That guarded shall the green turf b§ 

Where Hermann's ashes sleep.' 
Thus at the door at Ticknor's 

We parted where we met, 
But beating to that stranger's grief, 

Is my heart even yet. 



154 



BEGUILINGS, 

ON RECOVERING FROM HOPELESS ILLNESS. 

Ye win me back to earth, young buds and flowers, 
When I had lifted toward the heaven my wing, 

And fixed mine eye upon the shady bowers, % 
Where evermore do fadeless blossoms spring. 

Ye win me back to earth with your bright hues, 
And gentle whisperings of soft summer dawns, 

Bedecked with jewels strung of glistening dews, 
On the fine netted threads that drape the lawns. 

Ye have a fragrance in your morning breath, 
That giveth back the life I had resigned ; 

An odor all^o sweet, the rival Death 

Lingereth awhile that I its strength may bind. 

Ye make the earth so beautiful again, 

My fainting spirit leaps as health were mine, 

And the pale, sluggish currrent stains the vein 
Ad own my temple with a richer line. 



BEGUILINGS. 155 

Ye waken in my soul, ye lovely things, — 
Fond kisses of the Maker taking form, — 

A gladness that unlocks the secret springs 

Of life, and once more love and beauty warm. 

Ye do beguile me of the weary hours, 

That through long restless nights hang round my bed ; 
For I do sweetly dream of brooks and bowers, 

And forest shade, where ye a beauty spread. 

And ye do mind me ever, night and day, 
Of a cool ' Cottage ' by a river's flow ; 

And a glad waterfall in merry play, 

Whose gentle murmurs were as harp-tones low. 

There, over-canopied with shrub and vine, 

Grouped my young household with bright faces fair, 

Or sought for tassels of the fringed pine, 

Or flowers, whose odor sweet burden'd the air. 

O, ye were ever to my longing heart 

Shadows of holiest things, — the blest Ideal ; 

Nor could I from your presence meekly part, 
But that I go to dwell amid the real. 

Ye yet may hold me from my native clime, 
A little space, though angels beckon me ; 

But when shall come the autumn-fading time, 
We may together seek our own eternity ! 



156 



SABBATH WORSHIP. 

I love to break away from earth's dull thrall, 
That hampers man's high being as a chain ; 

Its wasting care, its wearying labor call, 

Forgetting sects and creeds, that all are vain ; 

And bow my soul where heaven's archangels lean, 

In commune with the holy, the unseen. 

From sensual sounds I love to turn mine ear, 
To the low chant, the solemn altar hymn ; 

To seraph whispers, as they hover near 
The nave and transept of the temple dim : 

And thus refresh my faint and weary heart, 

With hallowed visions that do thus upstart. 

The tones that mingle with our daily songs, 
Are discord to the soul's deep melody ; 

We feel there to us higher life belongs, 
A freer anthem than this threnody ; 

That ever here our stricken spirits wail, 

Which in undying strains they yet shall swell. 



SABBATH WORSHIP. 157 

And thus to catch the worship of the skies, 
And lift me to the holy and the pure, 

I love to turn; for longings ceaseless rise, 
For free communion that shall e'er endure, 

With angels, who no sin or earth-stain bear, 

And evermore their songs of glory share. 



158 






JUBILATE. 11 



On seeing one of strong and hardy nature weep while reading some 
unpretending verses of my own. 



Stand apart ! — stand apart ! — go up to thy throne, 
Thou soul of my being, thou Psyche divine ! 

Thou may' st gird on thy purple, though forever un- 
known, 
The strong heart hath yielded its tribute to thine ! 

What more asked thy Childhood, when down by the 
stream 

Its tiny hand cast back the pebbles and sand, 
As a spirit all viewless o'ershadowed its dream, 

And with its strange pinions thy young being fanned ? 

What more asked thy Youth when in wanderings sweet, 
With bosom quick throbbing, mysterious and wild. 

The ideal still haunted the path round its feet, 
And with visions poetic its spirit beguiled ? 



JUBILATE. 159 

What more, e'en when first thy rude strings thou didst 
sweep, 

With tumultuous yearnings and wild kindling fire, 
Outgushing, resistless, as waves from the deep, — 

What more did thy proudest ambition desire ? 

What more the old bards, as they wandered the shore 

Of classic Italia, in robes virgin-hued, 
And ceaseless-toned lyres, breathing melody o'er 

Her pastoral vales with God's richness imbued ? 

With shivering strings on through dark penanced 
shades, 
And weary feet ever, they wandered by day ; 
And their sweet music floated o'er parched and crisp 
glades 
With rapturing power, — yet what more desired 
they ? 

What more they who traced those figures divine 

On the Vatican's walls, that their visions had wrought ; 

And who old men and maidens, to kneel at the shrine, 
And manhood in vigor, with moistened eyes brought ? 

What more, asked they all, than to move on the soul 
With a pathos and power that the tear should betray, 

And with passion resistless no tide should control, 
To make the strong heart melt down at its sway ? 



160 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

Then soul of my own, fold thy pinions to rest, 

See thy rude strings have quickened like arrows of 
fire; 

Untaught they have entered the strong manly breast, 
And melted the soul — thou hast crowned thy desire. 

Thou didst not ask gold — thou didst not ask fame, 
For worldly position thy thought did not pray ; 

But thou askedst alone that thy song once might claim, 
And move strongest hearts, — hang thy fond Lyre 
away. 



161 



GOD BLESS MY LITTLE FLOCK. 

God bless my little flock, 
As linked in heart and hand, 

Beneath my pleasant roof-tree's shade, 
So joyously they stand ; 

Beneath my roof-tree's sheltering shade 
A merry, joyous band. 

God bless my little flock, 

Thus grouped in love and truth ; 
With curling locks and dimpled foot, 

And fiery zeal of youth ; 
The swaddled babe, the patting foot, 

The ardent, restless youth. 

God bless my little flock, 

Upon my warm hearth-stone, 

Their mother's love the only shield 
Their trusting hearts have known ; 

While they to her the sceptre yield 
The goddess on the throne. 
11 



162 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

God bless them that they need 

No mightier defence ; 
(For woman sure may here protect, 

Pure, spotless innocence ; 
For woman's work is to protect 

Pure, spotless innocence.) 

God bless my little flock 

When scattered from the fold; 

Mid deserts drear and stony vales, 
O'er mountains rough and bold ; 

Mid deserts dark and narrow vales, 
O'er mountains bleak and cold. • 

God bless with shod den feet, 

As on in life they stray ; 
And when their pilgrim staff seems weak, 

Along the weary way ; 
For many a dark and dreary pass 

Is found along the way. 

And shall they ever stand 
As stands the minstrel now ; 

With weary limb and bleeding feet, 
And wet and dripping brow ? 

And fainting mid the noontide heat, 
With burning, aching brow ? 



GOD BLE&S MY LITTLE FLOCK. 163 

With panting heart and soul, 

From wrestling with the strong; 
Still echoing up the desert's steep, 

The broken notes of song ? 
Still bearing up the desert's steep, 

The emblem of her song ? 

While thick and fast around 

The bleaching rain-drops fall, 
And far away the parent fold, 

That early sheltered all ; 
And lost from view the parent fold, 

And broken down its wall. 

And yet a weary march 

Along a fearful road, 
Where oft the trembling feet must ford 

The turbid roaring flood; 
While darkness hides the bandit horde, 

Who thirst and shcmt for blood. 

God bless them lest they do, 

And bless them though it be ; 
Nor let life's follies ever foil 

Hopes of eternity ; 
And early take them from life's toil 

To blest eternity. 



164 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

Nor let them withered stand, 
The mark of blasts below ; — 

Their labor well and early done, 
'Tis better, far, to go ; 

Their labor well as fully done, 
So shall they joy to go. 

God bless them here or there, 
Mid sun or tempest's shock, 

Till grouped as now in yon bright land 
Where storm blasts shall not mock, 

Till gathered there a blissful band, — 
God bless my little flock. 



165 



MY CHILD'S FIRST TEETH. 



I clasp one, but I cannot cast 

The loosened gem away, 
And let it crumble into earth 

And mix with common clay. 
To see it break the swollen gum, 

We watched in agony ; 
And happier were we ne'er, than when 

Our infant's mouth held three. 

For then we felt the crisis o'er, 

And Death had lost his claim ; 
And so we carried her to the font, 

In our dear Saviour's name ; 
And called her Mary, for we thought 

Of Jesus' mother then ; 
And holy drops bedewed her brow 

In sight of holy men. 



166 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

And soon this tiny row begraced 

The little dimpled mouth, 
Whose breath was sweeter than the breeze 

From gardens of the South. 

'Tis scarce six years, my darling child, 

Since we did kneel and pray, 
To see these white, enamelled pearls 

That now we cast away. 
A lustrum, and but little more, 

A brief and pleasant dream ; 
But when these gems are all renewed 

Will thus the future seem ? 

O, all too soon we cast aside 

The things of infancy, 
And all too soon the childish heart, 

With its untrammelled glee ; 
For with it evermore departs, 

Ne'er to return again, 
Our life's fresh innocence, with joys 

That to it appertain ! 

I cannot bear to cast away 
These tokens of that hour ; — 

God grant its shadow may extend, 
Though tokens lose their power. 



MY CHILD'S FIRST TEETH. 167 

So shall the future bring thee dreams 

More blessed than the past; 
For childlike purity shall lead 

To that of heaven, at last. 



168 



THE DISGUISED PILGRIM. 

Suggested by the death of Miss S. C. S., a niece of the writer. 

There knocked at the door of the man of care, 

Afar in his prairied home, 
A Pilgrim, as he to rest him there, 

On a weary way had come. 

He lifted the latch, that man of toil, 

And felt the traveller's breath ; 
4 Thy entrance,' said he, 'I may not foil' — 

For he saw the Pilgrim was Death ! 

No welcome he gave, but he turned him round, 

And gazed on his children there ; 
And then to her who to life had bound, 

With a look of mute despair. 

The Pilgrim entered, and wistfully stood, 

And cheerily smiled withal ; 
Concealing his dart, he doffed his hood, 

As if for a friendly call. 



THE DISGUISED PILGRIM. 169 

Mournful and dark was that emigrant's home, 
While Death on the hearth-stone sat ; 

For disguise as he would, he knew he had come 
With a message he could not abate. 

At length said he, ' I am here not now, 

For the tiny bud or the fruit ; 
I want the blossom most fair on the bough, 

Of all, the loveliest shoot. 

c In the beautiful germ God gave it to you, 

And it has expanded bright, 
Lovely, and fair to the angels' view, 

And fit for the world of light. 

; I come for the jewel ye most do prize, 

More choice than gems of the sea ; 
I am sent by the " Lord of Paradise," 

And ye should resign it free. 

'The flower which ye, with a parent's pride, 

Have sported in days of youth, 
To be for the Lamb of God the bride, 

In her innocence and truth.' 

They bent, those parents, in sorrow and prayer ; 

No word of assent they gave, 
As they pressed to their hearts the blossom fair, — 

For they thought but of the grave. 



170 PASSAGES FROM LJFE. 

But a voice they heard from the Father's throne : 
'Though dark be your dwelling here, 

In glory ye shall yet behold your own ; 
Be resigned, be lowly, and fear.' 

Death seized the flow' ret and bore it on, 

But it yielded to his power 
A perfume, a fragrance, which yet by none 

Was perceived till that painful hour. 

And it lifts its head with a beauty now, 

In the garden fair of heaven, 
Which never, till broke from the parent bough, 

To its petals would have been given. 



171 



ON A SEPULCHRAL LAMP, 

TAKEN FROM ONE OF THE ANCIENT TOMBS OF CRETE. 

The bowl is empty and the flame hath died — 
The perfumed oil hath spent its fragrance long, 

The cold sepulchral bed of love beside, 

While angel watchers swelled the triumph song. 

And yet in wonderment and awe divine 

I sit to gaze on thee, thou precious relic, mine. 

I wonder me in what strange sepulchre, 

Beside whose pallid form thy light was shed; 

Perchance some hero's, car- borne from the war, 
Or maiden's, bridal decked, untimely dead ; 

Where dimly lighting up the humid cell, 

Thou, and pale, envious Death, kept her all virginal. 

Amid those ancient tombs, long centuries claimed 
By classic Ida, where great Minos ruled, 

Peopled by her proud cities c hundred ' named, 

Whom death had robed, thy flickering flame was 
cooled. 



172 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

And thus thou dost discourse of glory laid, 

With opening youth and beauty, in their vaulted shade. 

I see the Cretan damsel early greet 

Those haunted halls to meet her lover lone, 

And place the tear-washed garland at his feet, 
As thy faint ray o'er his pale visage shone ; 

Hastening she stoops, his lips once more to press, 

Ere thy quenched odorous light shall mark them spir- 
itless. 12 

What wondrous tales thou couldst unfold to me : 
Of tender love, — life's only bliss earth-grown; 

Of outpressed royalty disrobed and free ; 
Of regal mourners spurning the cast crown, 

To place in mockery o'er a cankered heart, 

As in one gorgeous line they from thy presence part. 

That infant hushed, did thy pale light behold, 
While the dumb artist with his easel spread, 

Transfixed the smile of love, with fingers cold, 
Then laid his masterpiece beside the dead ! 

There clinging as in life — oh! precious sight, 

Close to its mother's breast, still shadowing forth delight. 

Thou rarest gift, what secrets couldst thou tell, 
Of the old minoiaur's devouring breath, 



ON A SEPULCHRAL LAMP. 173 

As one by one his victims to thy cell, 

Ensanguined came to avenge a prince's death ; 
Nay, virgin groups, with their soft braided locks, 
And tender mirthful bloom, like Ida's leaping flocks. 

Came ancient bards by the Ideei taught 

From the green summits of that classic hill, 

And casting lyre and laurel they had brought, 
Left thee to watch o'er their sweet coronal ; 

While weeping gods, for every crumbled leaf, 

Placed in the niche of Fame, a crystalled drop of grief! 

Within thy moulded rim, thou treasure gift, 

Pages of history thou dost enfold, 
Which from thy silence I do long to lift, 

For deeper morals thine than Plato's old ; 
Thus more I prize thee than the ruby gem 
That blazing clung to Ariadne's diadem. 



174 



THE STRANGER, 

WHO SENT ME A WRITTEN REQUEST THAT I WOULD ' WRITE 
SOMETHING FOR HIM (LONG OR SHORT.') 

Askest thou a thought from me, 

In my poet dreaming ? — 
Wouldst thou that the offering be 

But as a pale light's gleaming, 
From out a wasted .city's walls, 
Or wind-notes floating through its halls ? 

Silvery lutes have hushed their tones, 

The dancers have departed ; 
And banquet smiles are changed to moans, 

As from the weary-hearted ; 
While through the tapestry's rent seam, 
Dark and mysterious letters gleam ! 

Bid'st thou thus to sweep my lyre, 
And to wake its numbers ? 



THE STRANGER. 175 

Thus to call back its wasting fire, 
Ere the weak heart slumbers ? 
Askest to yield my trembling hand, 
To but one measure soft and bland ? 

Hath this lyre a tone so sweet, 

Chords so proudly trilling, * 

Thy far-off listening ear to greet, 

And thy bosom thrilling, 
That thus thou bid'st me strike again, 
With my heart-pulse the echoing strain ? 

Bid me then thy cherished theme, 

With thy choicest measure ; 
Open up thy boyhood's dream, 

Thy manhood heart's deep treasure ; 
For I would move that soul of thine, 
As Eos stirred the Me inn on shrine. 

But 'tis vain — with manhood's hope, 

Or boyhood's blissful dreaming, 
Dareth not my lyre to cope, 

In Its loftiest seeming. 
Teach me the strains that Orpheus gave 
When raptured paused the throbbing wave. 



176 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

But the wires are quivering now 

To a strain unbidden, 
And within my soul doth bow 

To the music hidden. 
To strike the note again I '11 try — 
c Ne'er from thy memory let me die.' 

And beneath the loosened strings, 

A softer strain is heaving, 
Eve and sunlight far it rings, 

The wide waste air cleaving — 
' Stranger, be ne'er thy life-throb stilled, 
With thy soul's purpose unfulfilled.' 

And with the lay thou'st won from me, 

Tribute seldom given, 
Save upon my bended knee, 

To the God of heaven ; — 
As from that clime, though clothed in dust, 
I yield to thee this offering — trust. 



177 



STANZAS. 

c Mother,' was the frequent interrogation of a child of two years, who had 
recently been separated from a fond elder brother by death, 'Mother, brother 
will come back again, wont he ? Oh, he will, I know he will come back some- 
time,' and her countenance was lighted up with the felicity of hope. 

Ay,- please thyself, the hope though vain, 

May cheer thy childhood hours, 
That yet thy brother will return, 

To sport among the flowers ;■ 
And cull the fairest, as his wont, 

For thine own tiny hand, 
And yet again, in boyhood glee, 

Unite the broken band. 

Thou dost not dream, thou guileless one, 

That they no wakening know, 
Who sleep as erst thy brother slept, 

Mid tears and wail and woe. 
Alas ! thou knowest not, my child, 

How lengthened is their stay, 
Whom once the hearse has slowly borne 

Along the churchyard way ; 
12 



178 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

Else grief would chase thy hope afar 

And thou would'st weep as I, 
For he no more will join thy sport, 

Beneath the pleasant sky. 
No more, no more his merry tone, 

Will answer to thy'call ; 
Thou wilt send forth the gleesome shout, 

And he unheed it all. 

And thou wilt see the swollen bud, 

The ripened fruit and grain, 
And blossoms opening to the sun, 

Amid the verdant plain, 
Full many a time, ere thou shalt meet 

His tender loving smile ; 
Or e'er again in fond caress 

His untaught song beguile. 

And thou wilt wait till hope deferred 

My heart would slowly burn ; 
For, oh ! the coffin-lid shuts out 

All hope of a return ! 
But please thyself, thou merry one, 

With the delusive dream ; 
I will not undeceive thee now, 

So joyous does it seem. 



STANZAS. 179 

Blest childhood, I could wish, like thee, 

To hope when hope is vain, 
If time would never undeceive, 

Till it had soothed the pain. 
It is its utter hopelessness 

That makes bereavement sore ; 
Its bitterness is all in this, — 

The dead return no more ! 

Hopeless ! — kind Heaven we are not left 

In dark drear pagan night ; 
Thanks to thy condescending love, 

We have the Gospel light ; 
And by that light the spirit-land 

Is oft with smiles explored, 
By those whose hearts were broke with grief, 

At earth's last parting word. 

So they the dear departed ones, 

Who may no more return, 
We yet shall joyful meet again, 

Who here are left to mourn. 
Then look not for thy brother back, 

But thou shalt hand in hand, 
With him still walk o'er flowery paths 

In heaven's fair pleasant land. 



180 



TO THE IDEAL. 



A FRAGMENT. 



Around my infancy, thou viewless thing, 
Close didst thou hover, as on life's fresh wing, 
Making the skies more blue, the flowers more fair, 
And casting rainbow- hues on earth and air ; 
Incorporate with my being sure thou art, 
And yet I have adjured thee — leave my heart. 
Adjured — abjured, and still thou didst not heed, 
Still forced life's veins and made thyself my need, 
As when the leaping current overprest, 
Starts from the wound and thus relieves the breast. 
And now I nestle 'neath thy gorgeous wing, ' 
And to thy blessed shadow fondly cling ; 
Now do I feel thou art my spirit's twin, 
And open wide my heart to let thee in. 
The Real fades before my longing sight, 
But thou forever art my soul's delight, 

Making my noon of life like childhood's hour, 
Balmy and sweet with thy delicious power ; 
Nor can I pray thee, leave me not alone — 
I know thou wilt not — Life and Thee are one. 



181 



LADY AND POET. 



- ' Thou could'st not go, 



With those words upon thy lips — 

I knew thou would'st not, could'st not, durst tot go ! ' 

Scenes from Politian. 

A Poet in dread 

Pressed his dying bed — 
Afar 'neath a southern sun, — 

Yet a missive he sent, 

Ere his life's day was spent, 
To an early worshipped one. 

c It haunteth me e'er, 
O, Lady fair ' — 
('T was thus that the missive ran,) 
4 That a wrong I spoke, 
And a vow I broke, 
And mournful the past I scan. 

' My words pure were they, 
And my heart true as day, — 



182 PASSAGES FROM LIFE. 

('T was thus that the missive ran,) 
c But a demon awoke, 
And a wrong I spoke, 
Thus pining my life fills its span. 

'They fall as 'tis meet, 
Tears — tears on the sheet — 
(So the words of the missive ran,) 
c That with beckoning hand 
Now to thee I send — 
Forgive, gentle one, if you can.' 

Its white leaves were spread, 

And the Lady read 
Of his grief that in secret burned, 

And his soul to forgive, 

Ere the urn should receive 
His ashes, her meek spirit yearned. 

But while blessing his name, 
A dread message came, 

With moaning from over the sea ; 
And the Poet's death-knell, 
Throbbed the funeral bell, 

So his sorrowing soul was free. 



LADY AND POET. 183 

But the Lady's heart 

Felt it blest to depart 
With a spirit repentance riven ; 

And the missive sweet 

For a Poet meet', 
She treasured as token of heaven. 



^0ntt0 af !Ijb I hat. 



To one whose hidden and mysterious life, 

Was fed from fountains of the pure Ideal, 
Who led my panting soul away from strife, 

Athirst by bitter waters of the real , 
To those fresh gushings never more, to pine, 

Where' bathed my parched lips in their draughts divine, 
I pour the full libations hither brought 

From their rich waves in streams of mystic thought : — 
To one who set these wild flowers in my track 
E'en in my life's young May, 
Parting the rue away, 

All plucked and bound, here do I give them back. 



ELIA. 

Knew ye e'er a maiden 

Proud as a sultana ; 
And with red lips laden 

As with sweetest manna ; 
Of the forever blessed name 

Of Elia Gaudianna ? 

Such an one was plighted, 
In her girlhood's morning, 

To a proud one knighted, 
And of noble scorning ; 

So let it be for aye, to all, 
Tale of deepest warning. 

He, the knight, was christened 

On St. Agnes' even ; 
Laughing maidens listened, 

As the name was given 
In holy accents by the priest, 

c George, St. George McGriven. 



190 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

From the font baptismal 
Smiling sponsors bore him, 

Through long arches dismal, 
Echoing far before him, 

While still the glittering hallowed drops 
Dewed the broidery o'er him. 

When the babe grew older, 
And the red cross fluttered 

Proudly from his shoulder,* 

Were frequent blessings uttered ; 

While strangely syllabled the words 
Wizzard lips oft muttered. 

Brows no shadow cumbered 

Bent before his glory, 
On the field where slumbered, 

Comrades pale and gory ; 
And his name gave power and charm 

To the fireside story. 

Elia's house was lowly, 

Yet proud hopes she nourished ; 

Waking visions holy, 

That through life ne'er perished, 

Prompting to kind and hallowed deeds 
Evermore she cherished. 



ELIA. 191 

Gentlest in the parish 

Was her girlhood's bearing ; 
Ribbons gay and gairish, 

Envious maidens wearing, 
Strove thus to hide her loveliness, 

Or give it mean comparing. 

But when the Lord McG riven 

On the moor benighted, 
At the tide of even 

From his steed alighted, 
So like a star her beauty shone, 

His noble heart he plighted. 

Soon proud guests were bidden 

To the merry bridal, 
And steeds unwelcome stridden, 

Paused at the kirk at Bydal, 
With smoking flanks, while passed a rite 

By some deemed suicidal. 

Ere the twelfth moon's waning, 

Bitter thoughts and saddening 
Elia's bosom baning, 

Buried hopes so gladdening ; 
Until for love a smothered grief 

All her brain was maddening. 



192 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

He, the proud one, loving, 

Knew not Elia's sorrow ; 
Knew not, while approving, 

Woman's love could borrow, 
From out its own intensity, 

Grief for every morrow. 

Whisperings round the manor 
That the lord was faithless, 

Envy set to ban her 

Young heart, pure and scatheless ; 

Till thus it worked its direful way, 
Dark and secret, nathless. 

Many a sunlight wasted, 

With her bosom heaving, 
While to the cup she tasted 

Bitterest dregs were cleaving ; 
Yet her pale, parched and shrunken lips 

Ne'er a gall-drop leaving. 

At length fresh gathering foemen 
Called the knight to battle ; 

And as the circling gnomon, 
Amid the cannon's rattle, 

Fell on the dial with the sun, 
Ceased all childish prattle. 



ELIA. 193 

They on the field victorious, 

The flaming war-breath hushing, 

Marked not his fall inglorious, 
With the hot blood gushing, 

The Lord McGriven's, — as they stayed 
The purple current's rushing ! 

To his castle's portal, 

At the morning gloaming, 
Bore they all the mortal 

From the battle's foaming, 
Of the white bannered warrior knight, 

Cold in his armor slooming ! 

Saddest there the meeting, — 

Death had sped before him — 
For icy cheeks lay greeting 

'Neath the pall spread o'er him, 
And the cold heart had gathered twain 

On the bier that bore him ! 

Echoed long the story 

Of that proud knight crested, 
Who on the field fell gory, 

Where foemen's steel he breasted, 
And whose heart-broken, murdered bride 

'Neath the same pall rested. 
13 



194 



THE REFRAIN OF EVA. 

Eva sat at vesper tide, 
By a casement open wide ; 

And a spirit, as she bowed, 

With its pinions seemed to shroud, 

All her form — her being all — 
Rays of glory seemed to fall, 

On her marble forehead there, 
And the tresses of her hair ; 

While a murmur ran along 
As the burden of a song ; 

Swelling, in a louder strain, 
To the beat of this Refrain. 



Eva's voice was full of power, 

The spirit-breath of that hushed hour. 

Down large drops did frequent fall, 
(Eva's heart 'twas shed them all,) 



THE REFRAIN OF EVA. 195 

While these strains did freer pour, 
As, when lightning flashes o'er, 

Fall the rain-drops oft more free, 
On the land and on the sea. 

c They shall not know how 1 have wept for thee, 

Thou erring one ; 
Nor the strong grief that swells to agony, 
Rising and sinking like the surging sea, 

From sun to sun. 

They shall not know that when thy death-knell came 

A pang did start, 
As of despair amid the quenchless flame, 
Of a long secret altar to thy name, 

Within my heart ! 

Thou wast unworthy of my love, I know, 

And of these tears, 
Unworthy all ; yet will they rise and flow — 
Oh! bitter waters breaking o'er my woe — 

As the life wears ; 

Unworthy of the worship that I gave, 

Yet thou did'st seem 
A desert opening — isle amid the wave, — 
A hallowed temple, 'neath whose lifted trave, 

The soul might dream ! 



196 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

Ay, thou as like "a crystal-girded shrine, " 

Didst seem to me, 
In far off Pagan lands, where bent in sign 
Of holiest worship, 'neath its shade benign, 

The wanderer's knee ! 

But that I know, amid these bitter tears, 

To mine, was set 
Thy heart's one hymn, through many, many years, 
(Sweet words to shivering strings the minstrel bears) 

I could forget. 

" I know not how thy genius mastered mine, 

My star stood still 
Before thee," and in wonderment divine, 
Thus did the full magnificence of thine 

My being fill ! 

Alas ! the sad " fatality hath cost me dear," 

As Heaven doth know ; 
For every smile hath wrung a scalding tear, 
And thy wild lute's most subtle plaint to hear, 

Wrought me but woe ! 

Oh, ever is it woman's lot to be, 

Faithful through wrong ; 
Yet none shall know how I have wept for thee : 
Deep shame shall hide, not quench my agony 

For love is strong ! ' 



THE EEFRAIN OF EVA. 197 

Ceased the murmur of the strain, 
And the drops that seemed like rain ; 

While a glory filled the room 
With an odor as perfume, 

When a pastile yieldeth up, 
Incense from its burning cup ! 

And a figure stood amid 
With a smoking censer hid 

'Neath a robe, as angels wear, 
Floating on the fragrance there. 

Then there came an anthem sweet, 
And for seraph-harps most meet : — 

c Eva, maiden, ever dear, 
Passions dim thine earthly sphere ; 
Truth with Falsehood seems o'ercast, 
But 'tis Truth prevails at last. 
Spirit ! spirit ! this alone 
Reaches heaven's eternal throne ! 
'Twas a vapor dimmed thine eye, 
So thou could'st not Truth descry, 
Or where bitter tears were wept, 
Thou had'st on Love's bosom slept : 
Love, that doth outlive all time, 
Breath of this angelic clime. 



198 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

Death hath purged the foul away, 
Pride and anger, sensual clay, 
Now, the spirit purified, 
I am worthy of the bride ! 
Thy soul's beauty broke above 
All low passion, deemed earth's love ; 
Secret did its incense burn, 
In the never-crumbling urn, 
That an angel now I bear, 
Shadowed by earth's falsehood there. 
Hush, then, hush, thy soul's despair ! 
All the holy, all the pure, 
Shall forevermore endure.' 

As the last strain died away, 
Midnight shadows silent lay, 

On the ancient mullioned pane, 
And the oaken transoms stain • 

While sweet sleep o'er Eva's face, 
Shed a glory and a grace : 

And when morning woke the maid, 
Her heart's sorrow all was stayed ; 

The blest vision of the night, 
Filled her soul with peace and light* 



199 



MIDNIGHT SHADOWS. 

/ 
On the wall I mark strange shadows, 

On my antique chamber wall ; 
And I watch them through the midnight, 

Flitting o'er the pannel tall, 
Ever to my eyeballs glancing, 

Changing never at my call. 

Comes there one — 'tis of an infant, 
Binding nosegays on the sward, — 

Reaching forth its tiny fingers, 

The sharp lightning's flash to hoard, 

Casting pebbles on the sunbeam, 
Battling with the Roman bird ! 

Slowly pass wise men and hoary, 
And they gaze in wonder wild, 

Uttering words of prophet meaning 
At the genius of the child ; 

Gentle, loving, and aspiring, 
Yet a spirit undefiled. 



200 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

Yet another — 't is a maiden, 
Braiding roses with her hair, 

Looping up the falling tresses, 
At a magic mirror there ; 

Whither flits before her fancy 
A strange phantom as Despair ! 

Moves it not yet for its fellow, 
Still the magic mirror shows, — 

Still the phantom — still the tresses, 
Looped and braided with the rose ; 

But the spectre changes lovelike, 
And to her own ideal grows. 

Binds she to her heart in earnest 
What the infant had foreshown, 

Mind of wealth and soul of sorrow, — 
Grasping, restless, yet alone, — 

Thoughts the mightiest, passion tenderest, 
In a lute with subtle tone. 

But the Shadow — it hath vanished, 

And another waiteth now ; 
'Tis a matron robed in sable, 

Lines of sorrow on her brow, 
Standing in the shelving cloud-rift, 

Sporting with its promise bow. 



MIDNIGHT SHADOWS. 201 

Now she bindeth to her bosom 

Its bright gold and violet hues, 
And her robes are glistening over 

With the morn's uprisen dews, 
While strange melody ariseth 

From her mantle -folds profuse. 

It is heard afar, and hasteth 

Belted knight and sandalled bard, 

And fair ones, as white-robed angels, 
Lift the chaplet of reward ; 

Reaching onward, looks she scornful 
From her height on earth's regard. 

Now the magic mirror's phantom 

Lighteth near her winged and plumed, 

And in glowing recognition, 

Stands she as a weird one doomed, 

Folding round her form the cloud age, 
That her own heart's fires illumed ! 

It hath faded, — the strange phantom, — 

And succeedeth, stranger still, 
A white pall, no mourner clasping 

To his breast the falling frill ; 
And no sobs the breathless valley 

With a mournful echo fill ! 



202 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

i But upon the bier so laden, 

Bear they fresh. Olympian bays ; 
And no hand the budding garland 

Dareth upward e'en to raise ; 
For an eagle vvatcheth by it, 
And his eyes shoot fiery rays ! 

And yet more, he fiercely guardeth 
A strange Lyre with many strings, 

As he guards his eaglet offspring, 
'Neath his mighty shafted wings ; 

While a dirgelike shriek he frequent 
On the fearful silence flings. 

But this Lyre's rich chords of silver, 
All are broken, all, save one ; 

Tone from this hath never echoed, 
(Bright and burning like the sun,) 

Or a ceaseless, world-wild homage, 
Had unanswered music won. 

And this shadow changeth never, 
But more vivid to me seems ; 

On it moves — the strange procession, 
Bier, and pall, and eagle screams, — 

Lyre with tender chords all shivered, 
Save the one that heaven beseems. 



MIDNIGHT SHADOWS. 203 

On it moves — yet never reaching 

In its line the fearful goal ; 
And this shadow blendeth fitly 

With the shadows of my soul, 
Ever gleaming 'from the pannel 

As the dark hours ceaseless roll ! 



204 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 

AN UNFINISHED POEM. 

The sun went paling up the day, 

While on the brink of summer noon, 

The limp and drooping blossoms lay, 
Waiting the dewy eve of June ; 

And the faint herbage bent around, 

And with its foliage kissed the ground. 

Deep in the wood the zephyrs slept, 
Where Avon's sluggish waters crept, 
And on its violet borders sweet, 
Pressed languidly light dainty feet ; 
Till where its sparkling wavelets rest, 
On a green valley's sheltered breast, 
They paused ; and dimpling down the flowers, 
Pictured the glowing zenith hours. 
Two gentle loving hearts they bore, 
Along that glassy river's shore ; 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 205 

And fairer forms no mystic tide 
E'er mirrored from its verdant side ; 
Nor incense from wild blossoms shed, 
Or the verbena's luscious bed, 
E'er upward leaped, beauty so fair, 
To kiss, as radiant nestled there. 

One, was a maid of figure slight, 
And tresses drooping like the night, 
That her white bosom shadowed down, 
As forests lovelier landscapes drown. 
Hers was a languid, azure eye, 
That told what language might defy, 
And yet anon it beamed on earth, 
As sparkleth up a Pleiad's birth. 
No lines the sweet and pensive mouth, 
Shaded as cloudlets shade the South, 
Yet still she might have numbered o'er 
Four summers and a rosy score ; 
And these had left a history, 
Betokened by the smothered sigh, 
And pallor struggling on her cheek, 
With youth's bright vermeil tinted weak, 
That scarce her thoughts could frame to speak. 

The other wore a matron grace, 
Though shades of grief a dimple's place 



206 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

Assumed ; yet sported on her lip, 
A honeyed smile the bee might sip, 
In truant flight mistaking there 
Its ruby fold for rosebuds fair, 
Playing with ever ceaseless pride, 
In mockery of the spirit's tide ; 
While smothered grief and pent up tears, 
Made her seem older than her years, 
And her large eye of hazle hue 
Had lustred, — as the bud the dew, — 
And to her beaming face had given, 
A beauty shadowed from the heaven. 

I said a matron grace and mien, 

A matron dignity was seen, 

Where'er she moved, though ne'er a bride, 

Yet knelt she at the altar's side, 

As the world deemed ; but she had wed 

One to her heart now as the dead ; 

A gallant but a faithless lord, 

Who banned, had sought Australia's sward, 

Full many a year agone with one, 

Whom he had flattered and undone. 

In hope that absence would efface 

All sense of love, wrong and disgrace ; 

And thus a heart who left behind, 

More loving than the loved ; nor blind 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 207 

To wrong, to error, or to doom, 
Though joyous smiles concealed the gloom ; 
And thus she passed amid the crowd, 
Hoarding deep sorrows that the shroud 
Alone could quench, 'alone could cool; 
So mighty in her soul their rule, t 
None dreaming that the lot she graced, 
Was but a dreary, barren waste. 

Long did they pause till noontide fled, 
And lengthened shadows softly spread, 
The silvery wave, and dripping sedge 
Bending behind its reedy edge, 
Half buried in sweet buds and flowers, 
That purpled up the joyous hours. 
Awhile they talked, awhile they mused, 
As to all vain discourse unused ; 
Then questioned each of each, and blent 
Their thoughts in glow T ing sentiment ; 
Till weary with the weary day, 
In wildering song their voices play. 
Nor were these beings of one home, 
Who thus in dreamy mood had come, 
To inhale the glories of the earth, 
Though were they twins of inner birth ; 
Each envious of the others' woe, 
Deeming her own had mightiest flow, 



208 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

Her own most rare and strange distress, 
Her bosom tenderest wretchedness. 

Thus do some hearts in sorrow proud, 
Make their own grief a gorgeous shroud, 
Scorning the woe that others hide, 
While theirs needs giant strength to bide. 
Each thought her own the broken heart, 
Where Love had deepest flung his dart ; 
And thus in accents wild and quaint, 
Each would outvie the others plaint. 

Flinging her night-like tresses back, 
That floated on the zephyr's track ; 
The younger touched a seraph air, 
Which might not with their own compare, 
Yet up the sky they listening hung, 
And this was the wild lay she sung : 

c Oh, tell me where doth the spirit roam, 
When the pale heart leaveth it in the gloom ; 
Tell me, Oh Eros, and where doth it rest, 
When the languid life forsaketh the breast ? 

' Doth it bend and drink from the Lethean wave, 
In that land of shadows beyond the grave ; 
Or on glad wings, like the new-fledged dove, 
Soar upward and onward forever in love ? 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 209 

They have deemed me glad, they have deemed me gay, 

When the breath of my spirit was passing away, 

For a smile wreathed my lip, while my soul-depths 

were stirred, 
And it paused on spread wings as a desolate bird. 

They have deemed me proud, they have deemed me 

vain, 
Yet ne'er on my heart hath darkened a stain ; 
But one hath proved false whom the angels had crowned, 
And I know that God's curse o'ershadows the ground. 

Oft, oft do I look on life's gorgeous light, 
And question my soul when will it be night, 
And long for the dreams the bright seraphs bring 
To pale couches spread by the Conqueror-king.' 



She paused, and rose up in her breas& 
Strange wayward thoughts of the unblest, 
While crystalled on her cheek a tear, 
That left the struggling spirit freer, 
And then anew broke forth the strain 
In a melodious refrain : 

' I lighted my lamp, and I hied to the stream, 
And watched it afar o'er the idol wave gleam ; 
14 



210 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

Deep and dark were his wrongs, as that wild surging sea, 
Yet he came not to plead for forgiveness with me. 

He asked for my pity, he knelt for my love, 
I gave him but these, witness angels above ; 
Yet cruel his words as the waves of that sea, 
And whispers he never, c Forgive me ! ' to me ! 

I stifled my tears in affected disdain, 

That none should e'er know my heart's grief or its pain ; 

But in secret it wails as that deep-heaving sea, 

O'er his wrongs — yet he asks not forgiveness of me ! 

I waited long moons, and again sought the stream ; 
(Poor Hindu ! thy Shaster hath shed a false gleam ;) 
Burns his wrong on my heart, and my lamp on that sea 
Even yet — but he pleads not forgiveness from me ! 

My woes none^nay know — yet in seeret I pray 
That the wreath on his brow may never decay ; 
I would he would ask — ere too late it shall be, 
And my broken heart silent — forgiveness of me. 

My soul hath but kindness, each morn do I plead ; 
Forgive him, great Father, be near at his need ; 
We shall meet — on the shore of a dark, fearful sea, 
Oh then will he plead for forgiveness with me ! ' 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 211 

The music ceased, while o'er the grass 

The lulling breezes softly swept 
And ruffled the clear river's pass, 

As o'er the rocks it sluggish crept ; 
While slowly down the Occident 

Apollo in his glory went. 

Soon gushed from out that matron breast 
Long pent-up thoughts too deeply pressed, 
Like strains the surging billows pour 
To the unanswering barren shore. 

It seemed a dream of other years, 

That Memory from her stores had brought, 

There written out as with pale tears, 
And fading ne'er to vulgar thought, 
But which her wayward fancy wrought 

Into a sweet and thrilling lay, 

Assuming life and form and strength, 

As figures from the senseless clay 

Fashioned like Him the great Divine, 

And hallowed by a costly shrine 
Become as gods at length. 

But when from out the cherished dream 
She woke the burden of the theme, 
The lay upon her lips grew strong, 
Too deep, too tearful all for song, 



212 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

For poet words in numbers free 
Are matchless in their minstrelsy, 
And matchless in their melody ; 
And music, as the wind the wave, 
Doth but disturb the graceful stave 
Breaking its proud majestic flow, 
Its sweet, enchanting, sparkling glow. 
Thus she, that gentle matron maid, 
As still her wayward fancy played, 
Resigned the soft sonorous key 
That marred its subtle flippancy ; 
Yet still in sweetly varying notes 
The theme upon the ether floats, 
In pure and high-wrought narrative, 
Whose charms, ideal shadings give. 



c There fell upon my soul a wildering dream, 
No, not a dream, — but strange reality ; 

So wild, so sweet, so trance-like did it seem, 
I feared to start lest all should change and flee. 

It came at the dense heat of noon, a shade, 

A twilight shade, a gorgeous rose-wreathed bower, 

Where flashing to the light a fountain played, 
That cast in sparkling mist a pearly shower. 






THE SISTERS OF AVON. 213 



I had grown faint and weary with the day, 
And heat and dust, and travel sweltered me ; 

My soul was lonely in the crowded way, 

And my cheek paled the homaged breath to free. 

Within my heart of hearts there had awoke, 
A void long since, yet none divined it there, — 

A weary void, that when each orient broke, 
Filled with strange music, set to songs in air. 

Here broke the vision, lovely shade and bower, 
And leaping fount ; lingering I cast my care, 

For to my soul a strange and mighty power, 

Soft and beguiling words, seemed w r hispering there. 

The air felt laden with the breath of myrrh, 
And strains of music as the fabled notes 

Of dying swans, made every leaflet stir, 

And rippled the bright fount with fairy boats. 

Then forth there came to my enraptured sight, 

(From whence, I know not, how, or why it came,) 

A mortal form, — immortal — veiled in light 

That well nigh had consumed my heart, — its flame, 

The flame that wrapped its glory blazed around, 
As altars blaze with hallowed incense ; air 



214 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

And sky and earth, and all that crowned, 
Gave back the gorgeousness and odor there. 

Around his brow was twined a serpent wreath, 
And to his fingers swayed harpstrings of fire ; 

That swelled forlornest strains, burdening the breath 
Of air, to memories of uncrowned desire ! 

It seemed the wild refrain of my soul's void, 
They echoed forth, in deepest melody ; 

Full-voiced but sweeter far joined cadenced word, 
Answering its longings strange, in consonant meas- 
ures free. 

I felt as in the presence of a god, 

My heart, awe-struck, sent up a censer flame, 
With fingers clasped; — flower-burdened was the sod, 

And there the figure knelt as best it me became ! 

Then solemn vows on the warm breath of love, 
In tones beguiling entered all my soul ; 

And from his dark eye flashes as famed Jove, 
The immortal gave, where iEgea's surges roll ! 

The tranced while I pressed my throbbing heart, 
And twisted every key in torturing pain ; 

But I forgot the tightened chord can start 
To deeper music in a Memnon strain. 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 215 

Then I relaxed its strings, but freshest tears, 
Bathed them and shrunk them to a tension free, 

And gathering unknown strength acquired of years, 
To strains he poured they thrilled in ecstasy. 



But could a god so kneel to mortal form, 
So could a mortal charm immortal here ? 

Could soul so waken soul, heart heart so warm, 
An arid Eden freshen by a tear ? 

Then deep, deep down within my wondering heart 
There woke a dream — a thought, — a picture e'en, 

Like to that vision, drawn in youth, apart, — 
My soul's Ideal had my clear eye seen. 

I stood a moment statue-like — as still, 
Palsied, consuming with the unveiled sight ; 

Then rushed my idol worship but to fill 
In the full maddening splendor of that light ! 



But had the vision fell upon my youth, 

It had been more the light faint dream of sleep, 

Less of the soul's deep-felt eternal truth ; 

And I could see its shadows change nor weep. 



216 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

So pebbles thrown upon the gathered sea, 
Sink unrecovered 'neath the waves of time ; 

But scattered o'er the streamlet, leaping free 
In youth, from mountain-slide and slime, 

The boy may reach them with his tender palm, 
And bear in youthful sport the prize away ; 

Or in their shallow bed, each planet charm 
An answering glow, to every toying ray. 

So breaks from breath of years the aloe-bud, 
Amid high air beyond a mortal grasp ; 

So in time-gathered fury breaks the flood 
Of flame untameable from Yaanek's clasp ! 



" The spirit-blow is struck," my life-way leads 
Henceforth through lushest vapor, through the cloud ; 

And every spot on which my faint foot treads 
Shall gush the dark wave or the miry shroud. 

Henceforth the raven's beak my heart shall bear, 
And the strange flapping of its ebon wings 

Fan my sad spirit to a deep despair, 
Wild as the " nevermore " it ceaseless sings. 



THE SISTERS OF AVON. 217 

But yet, " Endymion" like, my higher hope 
Shall be of that which becks consort divine ; 

A fellowship with essence all its scope, 
Till free of earth, full alchemyzed we shine.' 



The night had gathered with her sparkling train. 
And flung her purple drapery round 
The burnished west, and sweetly bound 
The drooping flowers and herbage that had lain 
Panting for life upon the ground, 
In cooling dreams, and circlets fair 
Of beaded drops hung every where 
Beneath Astarte's crescent rays, 
Flashing as doth a diamond's blaze. 

The Sisters felt the dark'ning shade 
And, rousing from their dreams, essayed 
Backward to thread the river's course, 
When in strange accents deep and hoarse, 

Broke full upon the startled ear 
As from weird voices gathering near, 
These brief prophetic words, that slow 
Seared up the fountains of their woe : 

/ 



218 POEMS OF THE IDEAL. 

' Deep in the soul a secret power doth lie, 

Taught in the ancient lore of Alchemy, 

Whose latent strength shall one day break to flight, 

And spirit essence open up to sight ; 

Teaching as Hermes taught in mystic shade, 

That parts of subtlest spirit can be weighed. 

When this is learned, the heart no more shall shrine 

In its far depths the False for the Divine ; 

With quickened vision it shall ages view, 

And separate the Real from the True , 

Then with purged eyeballs what is pure discern, 

Nor o'er the False in bitter sorrow yearn. 

Till then as life ye find, life must ye take, 

And drink its wells, though ne'er the thirst they slake, 

While out on clouds of sighs your spirits roll 

To seek an Alabama for the soul ! ' 



Sudden o'er all a settled darkness came, 
Broken by fitful gleams of purple flame, 
While threatening drops the forest vapor heaves 
Like fairy footfalls tripping o'er the leaves. 
Quick turned they from the path, and silent led 
Their homeward way in musings strange and sad, 

Nor evermore with visions wild 

Wandered they where weird forms beguiled. 



f Jijrqraib (Bnlogtj. 



Him greatest now, most reverently I name, 
And beckon back from his proud height of Fame, - 
E'en him, of Blackstone revelator free, 
With word of Wisdom, heart all Poetry, 
To pause a moment in the valley deep, 
While T my humble Lyre presumptuous sweep, 
To loftiest theme — yet one his mastery showed 
So rapturing, that 'twas the one most loved, 
Most worthy of him ; — thus his honored ear, 
I wake in audience to my numbers here, 
Unworthy of it, though perchance they seem r — 
The tribute finds excuse e'en doubly in the theme. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



The gurgling streamlet by the mountain winds, 

Beneath the rose the violet shelter finds ; 

Or where o'er Alps the cloud's dim curtains play 

When morn doth robe herself to wed the day ; 

The tiny bird swift darts with timid wings, 

And to majestic Jura boldly clings. 

And who shall say that Jura is less fair, 

That the light-plumed thrush doth shadow there; 

Or, that the rose is less the queen of flowers, 

Because the violet nestles in its bowers ; 

Or, the bold mountain towering to the sky 

Is less a miracle for streamlets by, 

Washing its regal foot, and wiping too 

With many a verdure gift the scattered dew ? 

Or does the sun shine less when sinking down 

The stars presumptuous come to set his crown ? 

So, is the mighty even less in might, 

Because his shadow fills the weak one's sight ? 

The Heaven- inspired with wisdom less divine, 

That feeble ones bend thick around his shrine ? 



224 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

In short, was he we 've named e'en less a god 
Because a humble Lyre leans on his sod ? 
Or his bold brow the less like that of Jove, 
In that the wreath it wore pale fingers wove ? 
Or, is the shout of Fame less welcome heard, 
Because an unskilled minstrel's strings have stirred 
To its loud echo, gathering through the land 
Volume and strength till the round globe it spanned? - 
Then come, my timid muse, and dauntless deign 
To link with theme august thy feeble strain ; 
Spread thy short wings, thou shalt not harm the light, 
Though like the moth emerging from the night, 
To fan the upward streaming flame they try, 
Thou shalt but scorch thyself and stricken lie, 
Or else — still insect-like — more quickly die. 

Name thy exalted subject, take thy shell 
And breathe upon it to thine inner thought, 

Though few the listeners gathered to its spell, 
Its feeble notes with potency are fraught ; 

There is the psychological that brings 

To the rude peasant's banquet, chiefs and kings. 

Give out the programme, to the green-room go, 
And they of noblest birth shall grace the show ; 
While thou behind the curtain mov'st the scene, 
Gemmed fingers flash the frescoed walls between. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 225 

As pft the theme as the performer's power, 
That wins indulgence for the stinted hour ; 
Lost is the humble minstrel in the strain, 
That strikes the heart and echoes back again. 

Thus then to solemn pause the prelude dies, 
The minstrel panting stands with downcast eyes, 
And trembling half-assured with heart in pain, 
She dares not yet attempt the mighty strain ; 
Now with sublimer thought her theme inspires, 
She conquers all and strikes the thrilling wires. 



Stand by, Columbia, thy kingly son 
Hath grown adult and takes the father r s throne,. 
Thy glory pales and falls to an eclipse 
As lingers his proud name upon our lips ; 
Thou dost no more bequeath to him a fame, 
For thine the richer heritage — his name ; 
Country and clime are naught, and men grow less 
Where Webster's shadow trails the wilderness. 

Would we go back not many a lustrum yet, — 
(That solemn hour nor would we e'er forget,) 
When he we've named, whose orb so like the sun 
In setting when his glorious day was done ; 
15 



226 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

I 

That all around grew gorgeous to the sight 

And then closed in to all a leaden night ; 

When he — great presence — woke to fame and 

earth, 
(For these were but the synonyms of birth,) 
Then let us leave the thought, too faint and brief, 
The written page resign and turn the leaf. 



Amid the shelving crags of yonder height, 
The Eagle spread her eyrie to the light ; 
Yet in a lowly cottage at its base, 
Uncharactered by circumstance or place, 
The Eaglet cradled lay with eye like Mars, 
Whose yet unpointed shafts should sweep the stars ; 
And when full-fledged a shadow crossed the sky, 
As an embattled host its strength to try, 
Had travelled the wide realm of ether through 
And left its broad perspective on the blue, 
Set with the blazonry that sparkled there 
In or and argent, and forever fair. 

All hallowed art thou, Kearsage, evermore, 

That thy dim shadow spread his cradle o'er ; 

And thou, Mount Washington, whose snow-capped head 

Had well-nigh nodded to his mighty tread ; 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 227 

Sacred as that green summit' where were bound 

The wreaths with which the infant Jove was crowned, 

Art yonder thou, while time shall give thee place, 

And ocean cast his billows at thy base. 

Where'er this shadow passed, men gathered in their 

might 
To hail its glory and to drink its light ; 
On every star-crowned summit in its pause 
The crowd fell back, and Freedom to her cause 
Gathered new armies, while it led the path, 
And from the shadowed host stood forth at length the 

Gath. 

Throngs looked and lingered for the words he spake, 

And Discord sought her venomed tongue to slake ; 

Nations stood awed while the bold Spartan read 

With withering power the parchments they had spread^ 

To wrest the right or yet to cover wrong, 

Or turn the fraud to a beguiling song ; 

And proud Columbia, when her crisis came, 

Caught inspiration from his tongue of flame, 

While threatening storms were laid as by his word, 

And thunders hushed the startled ear had heard. 

'T was thus amid her honored senate hall, 

When this famed land seemed bound as in deep thrall, 



228 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

And all her stars grew dim, and dark eclipse 
Bathed the great nation's heart and paled the lips. 
That he stood forth, and dared e'en thus to stand 
To sweep the darkness from his cherished land j 
To charm the passions that tumultuous stirred, 
And leash the strife that clamored to be heard, 
In north and south, in east and west the same, 
Their fame to guard, though his should turn to shame- 
Then was it that the splendor of his power 
Shone with such charm in that illustrious hour, 
That Falsehood manned herself to strike the blow, 
She ne'er on her invulnerable foe, 
To hoary hairs had dared e'en once to aim, 
(State bribery her bold and base acclaim !) 
To brand his furrowed brow and stain his name. 

E'en favorite Bards lent their sublimest skill 

Till, like a curfew-knell from hill to hill, 

Went forth their strains of wail — 'to prayer to prayer, 

The glory has departed,' — poisoning air 

With the rhymed libel set in melody, 

That charmed e'en Justice, till she cast away 

The ancient balance from her steady hand, 

And reeled inebriated through the land ! 

Thus yonder Hall, on proudest pilgrim sod 

Long consecrate — where Freedom earliest trod, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 229 

Begraced and honored by his figure now 
From Artist's pencil shed, where pilgrims bow 
To his majestic image in deep awe, 
As ne'er before, and as none else could draw, — 
Refused him audience as to one of crime, 
Shaming its birthright through all coming time ! 
But virtuous men indignant saw the hate, 
And well with secret scorn the church and state 
Doubly repaid, while one undaunted strung 
Her unskilled lyre, and thus untutored sung : — 

4 Thou mighty man of mighty men, our bulwark and 

our sign, 
Our beacon light, towering on high, where rolls the 

surging brine, 
Whose wisdom was our country's hope, her strength 

alone thy might, 
Who rested on thy stalwart arm the cause of truth and 

right,— 
What hath come up between thy soul and those who 

proudly bent 
To honor thee, and with their shouts the glorious ether 

rent ? 
Why trembles on their poisoned breath, the banner of 

our fame ? 
Why do they link with discord thine and Freedom's 

hallowed name ? 



230 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

'They call thee " Ichabod" in scorn, and set upon thy 
track, 

To bark and howl, with heavenward head, their lean 

and hungry pack, 
And follow thee with accents foul, whose evil echoes 

thrill, 
Through mountain paths and far-off vales, and forest 

openings fill; 
And while New England's pulse and thine beat ever- 
more as one, 
They taunt thee with vile compromise — her lost and 

recreant son ! 
Hast thou grown feeble or corrupt on some Delilah's 

knee, 
That thus they wrest thy words and seek with withes 

to fetter thee ? — 
Joining the base Philistine horde, who vainly hope at 

length 
To blind thy sight and hamper thee, and rob thee of 

thy strength ! 

c Thy glory gone ? — so hath the sun's, when shoots its 

zenith ray 
At summer-tide, while round its blaze light silvery 

cloudlets play ; 
Or when through fiercest heat and glow, from June's 

soft solstice whirled, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 231 

To proud repose on Norland's heights, the wonder of 
the world ! 

Thou recreant to the North? — the star that ever bides 
its place, 

The magnet star — the polar orb — hath that a South- 
ern face ? 

The landsman's mark — the helmsman's guide, o'er 
arctic summits high, 

Hath that gone down to Capricorn — and left the 
Northern sky ? 

'Tis false,! — they slander thee ! — for when thy noble 
soul doth speak, 

Thy Solon words and eloquence betray the mighty 
Greek ; 

Thy patriot heart throbs to the wave amid thy granite 
hills, 

As leaps the ocean to the shore, whose mountain, gush- 
ing fills. 

'Ho! let them shout, "The Philistines!" upon thy 

Samson strength, 
Thou 'It rend their cords and bear away their Gaza 

gates at length ; 
Yea, bring their temple to the earth — deep burying in 

its fall, 
Dagon and all their kindred gods in one eternal thrall ! 



232 A KHYMED EULOGY. 

Safe on thy country's loftiest height I see thee firmly 
stand, 

Forbearance on thy lip and brow and justice in thy 
hand ; 

Her stars and stripes sweep over thee, as erst they 
proudly swept 

O'er her old heroes, musket-girt, on Bunker's hill who 
slept ; 

Who sought not strife, but bravely left amid the loos- 
ened sward 

Their panting cattle in the yoke, at danger's ^threaten- 
ing word. 

' E'en they who took the Spartan oath, breathed from 
the Delphic shrine, 

His name who gave it, cursed, nor strange that thus 
they syllable thine ! 

But thou — the favorite of the Gods and of the Py thia's 
smile, 

Shalt pass unharmed, as swerving ne'er in weakness 
or in wile : 

Twin of the Eagle in his flight — far-seeing and sub- 
lime, 

His shadow, as our emblem bird, shall shield thy head 
through time ! ' 






DANIEL WEBSTER. 233 

Nor died e'en yet the strain, though highest seat 
They who had feigned to love, and at his feet 
Cast braided garlands when the crowd stood near, 
Denied him now, as cravens bound by fear 
And jealous bribe ; in grate and blind 
To years of sacrifice in heart and mind, 
To life grown old in service, strength decayed, — 
His country's honor all the wealth he made. 

Man, foolish man, not yet hast thou believed ? — 

All honor given is honor but received ; 

If greatness — goodness — thy prostrations guide, 

Thou'rt nobler bending than erect in pride ; 

Who kneels him down before the Infinite, 

And worships there in fulness of his sight," 

With glowing heart by that eternal shrine 

Of holiest attributes, Justice divine, 

And Love, and Mercy, though beyond this sphere, 

There were reward nor retribution e'er, 

Proclaims an answering voice within his soul, 

And makes Love, Mercy, Truth, his Life's control. 

Thus greatest, lowest knelt his palm to press, 
Nor felt the doubled limb obsequiousness ; 
While they who loftiest stood beside his path, 
Wore Folly's cap, and deemed themselves the Gath ; 



234 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

And as it gathered o'er their purblind eyes, 

Declared his shadow darkened all the skies. 

And were they not astray, (though hateful thought 

Gave definition to the phrase they wrought;) 

For it was true, as we e'erwhile have seen, 

That so majestic was it, it could screen 

Our whole broad land from Discord's threatening jar, 

And 'neath its ample space fold every star. 

But Justice came at length and Victory, 

Prophetic as reflective to the eye ; 

Yet how prophetic had our hearts perceived 

Hot tears of anguish had our shouts relieved ; 

Dirges for pseans had borne down the breeze, 

And prayer chased homage from the bended knees ! 

Midsummer grew the day, and bosoms glowed 
With warmth that not the Sirius had bestowed, 
And morning rode up, on her fairest wings, 
And trumpets brayed as to the tread of kings ; 
While multitudes gained audience all along 
The distant road hid by a gorgeous throng, 
Where in its midst he rode before the day, 
With white uncovered head, and wreath of bay, — 
He, the embodied Wisdom of the land, 
The Webster of our strength, along the- strand. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 235 

Barges and skiffs came hastening up the sea, 

And thickened human hearts along the quay, 

And wires of network hung above the sod, 

Charged with the fire of heaven thrilled as he trod ; 

And thou, proud Athens, on Columbia's breast, 

Gav'st forth thy million shouts, from east and west 

In million voices gathered ; pealing note 

From brazen tongues and cannon's thundering throat, 

Reverberated far o'er hill and plain, 

And sent their joyous echoes o'er the main. 

Proud was that day for thee, blest hallowed shade ! 
Thy mighty farewell in thy laurels made; 
Melting e'en hearts that had grown cold as stone, 
And winning back false bosoms to thine own ! 
And thou, New England, prouder still for thee, 
Upon thy Granite seat high o'er the sea, 
Clasping in love ere he should sink to rest, 
Thy noblest son close to thy throbbing breast; 
Scene that the sun might well stand still to view, 
So like to Heaven's the welcome large and truev 
Triumphal was the march, gay streamers hung 
On every side, and banners wide were flung 
To the saluting breeze that soft lays bore, 
On fleet glad wings to Britain's distant shore ; 
Notes of laudation to the Pride of men ; 
Welcomed by raptured zephyrs back again ; 



236 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

Young children brought rich chaplets dewy wet, 
Bearing this welcome with their odors set : — 

c Bring leafy bays to bind a mighty brow, 

The vanquished hero doth the conqueror come ; 

Glad voices float the joyous breezes now 
And welcome the returning chieftain home. 

6 Defeat is not for him, along whose path 

Bend down in reverent awe the hearts of men ; 

Columbia in her meed of glories hath 

No gift for him ! — and loud we shout — amen. 

c She hath no offering proud enough to yield, 
No place so high — he would not stoop to fill ; 

Her mightiest chief — triumphant in the field, 
And when retreating, more triumphant still ! 

4 Hail to thy hoary locks ! Lycurgus, hail ! 

Thy every separate hair grows black again, 
And every laurel greener hue doth veil, 

As thus retiring from the battle-plain. 

c The tramp of steeds — it breaks upon the wind, — 
The " Welcome " gathers from the distant hills ; 

And children bring the garlands matrons bind, 
While proudest homage every bosom fills ! 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 237 

1 The valleys send their echoes on the route, 
And spiciest odors from the forests come ; 

New England, with one long convulsive shout, 
In fond embrace takes her loved champion home. 

' Our pilot star — no setting shall he know ; 

E'en when the cloud of death shall dim his eye, 
Through the wide earth each magnet point shall show 

Behind it all — his place amid the sky ! ' 

Yet with the gorgeous setting of the day, 
Passed not its glorious memory away ; 
And when the morrow rose — alas ! alas ! — 
No morrow came, that long night did not pass, 
With lingering echoes of the proudest day, 
That ever o'er New England had its sway ; 
No morrow came for him — who had achieved 
All greatness for her, and with many-leaved 
Triumphal crown had set her forehead height, — 
For him ? — look upward — it was hers the night ! 
And night, which, when upon the third watch out 
Gathered the dawn, the angels took the shout, 
And left us with the wail and ritual spread, 
And prayer and anthem evermore to read! 

The soft rays of October's sun knelt down 
To kiss, as on her coronation day, 



238 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

The earth, and loop his tiara round her tresses brown, 

And on her breast the regal jewels lay ;. 
Until her purple robes trailed on the sward, 
And on her fingers flashed the signet of her Lord ! 
v 

The golden sheaves stood clustering on the plain, 
And through the silent wood pattered like rain 
Upon the crisped leaves, the dropping mast, 
Then nestled down secure from winter's blast, 
In that voluptuous bed, the embryo hour 
Slumbering to wait, then bourgeon into power. 

But Death, more solemn reaper, envious came 
To bind his harvest, and his giant frame 
Grew more august, as in the vantage strife 
Of mightiest with mighty, armored rife, 
Yet reeled he 'neath his load, and dropped it down 
As 'twere one mighty shock, his garner's crown !< 
And there the burthen lay, our grief to mock, 
While ocean wailed and sorrowed to the rock 
That hid it from his view, and dashed his spray 
As showers of tears through all the solemn day ; 
There symbolling men's hearts, surging to flow 
In drops as free from out their hidden woe ! 
E'en nature in her lovely Autumn wept, 
Or seemed to weep, and holiest vigil kept, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 239 

For blade and blossom drooped around the grange, 
Where lay the master in a slumber strange, 
His full majestic form all proudly dressed, 
As when Columbia leaned upon his breast ! 
And hoary forests trembled as with grief, 
And cast their tear-drops in the falling leaf 
Upon the marble brow, bared to their sight 
From that sad solemn morn till desolate night ! 
And melancholy airs their dirges played 
To hearts more desolate beneath their shade ; 
And when stout yeomen lifted on the bier 
To give its weight to the departing year, 
They found one furrow turned they could not close 
For very weakness ; and their strong hearts rose 
And flooded down rough cheeks, unwonted too, 
To mirror thus the evening in its dew. 

Dim distant cities hushed their labor thought, 
While strange solemnity amid them wrought ; 
Men with low utterance lingered on the mart, 
As some great sorrow pressed upon the heart ; 
While full and fast boomed forth the minute gun, 
And banners half-mast high drooped in the sun, 
And sobbing bells pealed out the mournful tale, 
And poet lyres were muffled to the wail, 



240 s A RHYMED EULOGY. 

' Lo ! they droop upon the azure, 
Banners decked with sable hue ; 

Pall-like sweep they, and each eyelid 
Droppeth with a briny dew. 

c Yonder by the gathering waters 
Of the ocean's surging wave, 

He, our nation's pride and glory, 
Maketh even now his grave ! 

c Words we have not in our anguish, 
Woe hath sealed the lips of men ; 

And a mighty pageant moveth, 
Silent, where the blast hath been ! 

; Where his voice of wisdom echoed,. 

Breaketh forth a bitter wail ; 
And the lightning-winged courier 

Beareth far the mournful tale! 

1 Morrow, after morrow bringeth — 
As the great illustrious sleeps, 

Deeper anguish, deeper sorrow, 
And bereaved, Columbia weeps. 

1 Manhood, and the head all hoary, 
Bend beneath the chariot flame ; 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 241 

Smitten, mid its parting radiance 
Call they on the prophet's name. 

' Woe, my country ! woe betide thee ! 

They shall call for aye in vain ; 
For alas ! his falling mantle 

Who shall gather up again ! 

4 Fold around thy bleeding bosom 

The pale sackcloth, and be still ; 
Shroud the shrine ! no more forever 

Speaketh there the Oracle. 

' Let us pause — to-day fall tear-drops 

Such as ne'er Columbia shed ; 
Softly whisper ; — they are heaping 

Dust upon her mightiest dead ! ' 

And when that night closed in, nor moon nor star 
Had lighted up men's hearts near or afar, 
Had not upon that doubly hallowed morn, 
When he from out the nation's heart was torn, 
A vision broke all glorious to the sight, 
Flashing around with ever unquenched light, 
Enshrining words sublime as prophets give, 
That wondrous meaning shadowed — 4 1 still live ! ' 
16 



242 A RHYMED EULOGY. 

Yet sable badges hung round hearth and hall, 
And joy seemed smothered by that mighty pall, 
That shadows still, as a becoming veil, 
Our whole Columbia with long vigils. pale, 
And casts its ebon shade o'er every zone, 
Till distant nations make the grief their own ; 
The lowliest cottage in the farthest West, 
Or doth upon New England's summit rest, 
Hath there among its household gods enshrined 
The precious emblem of his godlike mind ; 
Or doth proud treasured, on its wainscot low, 
In artist lines his brow majestic show ; 
E'en childhood awed shall ever lisp his name, 
While we the priceless guerdon give to Fame. 

Thy last words, Honored Shade, that angels wrung, 

More than the wisdom that erst charmed thy tongue, 

In thy sublimest hour, from thy great heart 

Shall to thy memory solemn grace impart ; 

And ages yet to come the trust shall give 

To during marble- — 'Webster,' 'Still I Live.' 



NOTES. 



Note 1, page 18. 

'Jumala.' — ' Of this part of my life I have only retained one 
single memory. This memory is a word, a mighty name, 
which, in the depths of Paganism, was pronounced by the 
Finnish people with fear and love ; and is still pronounced, in 
these days, although perfected by Christianity. That word is 
Jumala, the Finnish name for God both in Pagan and Chris- 
tian times.' — Miss Bremer' s Account of her Early Years, trans- 
lated by Mary Howitt. 

Note 2, page 16. 

1 On a Picture.' — It is but due to the stranger artist, whose 
divine pencillings have adorned the public hall, as the private 
dwelling, both in Europe and America, and whose beautiful 
Scripture delineation gave inspiration to this poem, here to 
quote the following, which came to me through the hands of 
that distinguished j»atron of the arts, Robert Hooper, Esq., 
accompanied by the picture itself. 

Of this courtesy, so beautiful and so touching, toward an 
utter stranger, the public journals made note at the time. I 
have only, as a heartfelt acknowledgment to the distinguished 
author, here but to introduce her cherished words, with the 
tenderest gratitude. 



244 NOTES. 

' Madame, 
6 La Peinture et la Poesie etant Soeurs, c'est a ce litre que je 
viens vous prier d'agreer les homages de l'Esquisse des deux 
Maries, dont le tableau vous a inspire les beaux vers, qui sont 
venus me trouver en Belgique. Je suis on ne peut plus flattee, 
Madame, d'avoir peint un ouvrage, qui ait pu fixer votre atten- 
tion, et donner cours aux belles pensees religieuses dont votre 
Poesie est remplie. Agreez, je vous prie V expression de mon ad- 
miration pour votre beau talent, et recevez, je vous prie, 
Madame, l'assurance de mes sentimens le plus distingues, 

* Adele Kindt. 

* a Madame Locke, a Boston. 

l Bruxelles, le 26 Decembre, 1850.' 

I have also, in this poem, made use of the license given me 
by Scripture commentators, who are divided in opinion whether 
the Mary at the sepulchre was the Mother of Jesus, or her 
sister. It suited my purpose best to suppose the former. 

Note 3, page 24. 

• Issues of thy wounds.' — Naturalists have asserted that pearls 
are the concreted lactescence of wounds received by the oysters, 
in whose shells they are found. 

Note 4, page 41. 
' F. S. O.' — This poem was written in hopeless illness, at the 
request of its editor, Mrs. M. E. Hewitt, for the Memorial, a 
work commemorative of the death of Frances S. Osgood. 

Note 5, page 69. 
'The Discouraged Artist.' — This beautiful specimen of art, 
the property of George Ticknor, Esq., was executed by H. Green- 
ough, and represents the Discouraged Artijt sitting before his 
unfinished work with a dying lamp, which a friendly hand is 
seen replenishing, to enable him to complete his labors. 

Note 6, page 76. 
{ Dante.' — An original statuette in marble, included in the 
private collection of sculpture and paintings of C. C. Per- 



NOTES. 245 

kins, Esq., and representing the great poet with a volume in 
his hand, instead of the scroll more frequently seen. 

Note 7, page 90. 
{ In epitaph, withheld religiously and long ! ' 
* When my country takes her place among the nations of the 
earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. 5 — 
Speech of Robert Emmet, on receiving sentence of death. 

Note 8, page 98. 
■ The Millennial Ship.' — « A caloric ship, is a ship with the 
devil out of it — a Ship of the Millenium — a gentle, safe, and 
quiet craft, that will go silently yet swiftly over the waves, as 
Poets and Swedenborgians imagine a celestial bark may course 
her way through, from sphere to sphere, bearing beautified im- 
mortals on the errands of love.' — Remarks of Home Journal 
on the caloric ship Erricson. 

i 
Note 9, page 103. 

' The Lone Oak, &c.' — « Near Sutter's Fort, two miles east 
of the Sacramento River, and about the same distance south of 
the American Fork, is the burial-place of the emigrants in that 
section of the country Marking this hallowed and mourn- 
ful spot, from the far distance, may be distinguished one of 
those thrifty, wide-branching oaks, so familiar to all who have 
visited California. It is known through the whole region as 
" The Lone Oak," and under its branches the first grave was 
made for an emigrant from the civilized world. This grave was 
that made by a father for his child, who, with his wife and 
family, had made their pilgrimage there by the land route of 
Sierra Nevada, having buried several others by the way.' — 
Private Notes of Albert S. Southworth. 

Note 10, p. 145. 

6 Wamesit Cottage.' — Wamesit was the name of a tribe of 

Indians, to whom tlie apostle Eliot preached, inhabiting the 

neighborhood of the Falls upon the Concord River, in Lowell, 

Mass., and this name was consequently early applied to the 



246 NOTES. 

Falls themselves. Subsequently it was transferred to the au- 
thor's former residence, an ancient cottage, which stood but a 
few rods from these falls, and immediately upon the brink of 
this beautiful river, which perfected a scenery the most pictur- 
esque and poetic imaginable. 

Note 11, page 158. 

1 Jubilate. 5 — As further suggestive of this poem, I received 

at the same time a letter from a clergyman entirely unknown 

to me in the far West, containing this paragraph — ' At the 

close of a feast for the body and the mind, I read to all the 

effusions of your pen and of your heart, cut from the 

Observer, just received. Need I say, that all hearts were 
touched. The noble, manly soul, that pain nor hardship, nor 
loss of worldly wealth, could melt to tears, trembled, and wept 
like a bereaved child, with a depth of feeling that I cannot and 
will not attempt to describe.' 

Note 12, page 172. 

1 Ere thy quenched odorous light shall mark them spiritless." 

A superstition of the ancient inhabitants of Crete, supposed 
the spirit to linger in or around its clay until the oil in the lamp 
which love had placed beside it, was burnt out, and the flame 
extinguished. 



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